WSOP 2026 Players in Caricatures

Guy Richards Smith, a cartoonist for The New Yorker, attended WSOP 2026 in Las Vegas and produced a series of sketches of the participants, including Phil Hellmuth, Christoph Vogelsang and Martin Cabrera.

Smith came to the series as an observer. Walking through the halls, he discovered a direct parallel between creating cartoons and playing poker, since both pursuits rest on attention to detail.

"The best art comes about when the artist has noticed a strange little detail and generalized from it. Poker is about exactly the same thing"

By his observations, elite players don't just count better — they read microexpressions more skillfully and deliberately manipulate what their opponents see. Smith compared a tournament day to a 15-hour play, where every gesture is either calculated or part of the disguise.

The artist admitted that he can't play yet, but his studio partner has promised to give him his first lessons this summer.

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