Lex Veldhuis has had one of the most eventful years of any poker personality. After 17 years with PokerStars he announced on January 3, 2026 that the partnership was over, streamed his first session on GGPoker the same day, and by September had made his first WSOP final table since 2009. He did not win the bracelet, but the run says a lot about how one of poker's best-known streamers reinvented his year.
The split with PokerStars
On January 3, Veldhuis posted that, "After 17 years I have left Pokerstars." Neither he nor PokerStars gave a detailed public explanation. PokerListings noted several possible factors, none confirmed: creative control and what he has called "golden handcuffs", a long stretch away from poker streaming, and the effect of PokerStars withdrawing from the Netherlands after 2025 licensing changes, which made it difficult for him to stream the brand from home. The same coverage points out that, at the end of 2021, regulation had already forced him to travel to Belgium to stream, and that he did not play poker on stream at all in 2025. The honest summary is that the reasons are speculative and the two sides have kept quiet.
What is clear is what happened next. He launched his first GGPoker stream on January 3 and won his first tournament on the site, the $108 Bounty Hunters Special with 120 players, taking $2,541. In a post the next day he wrote, "Won my first tournament I ever played on GG yesterday." Other early results included a win in the $840 Sunday High Roller Bounty Special (87 players) worth $20.8K, a 51st-place finish in the $150 Saturday Santa's Secret KO (4,549 players) for $2.1K during an almost 11-hour stream, and a second-place finish in the $200 Daily 7-Max Special for $4,036.
A new streaming model
Veldhuis also changed how he streams. Having built his audience on Twitch, he now broadcasts to Twitch, YouTube and Kick at the same time, and upgraded his content studio to handle it. PokerListings summarised the logic: Twitch has the highest average poker viewership, YouTube is strong for replays and post-stream income, and Kick offers the most upfront revenue for streamers. For a creator whose income depends on audience reach, spreading across all three is a hedge against any one platform changing its rules.
He also said he did not want to become a room ambassador soon and wanted independence and full control of his content. That position softened over the year. By the time of his WSOP Online final table, PokerNews' report on the page carried a headline saying he had become a GGPoker ambassador. I could not independently confirm the full terms of that arrangement, so treat the details of his role as something to verify from official GGPoker announcements.
The WSOP Online final table
The big result came on September 3 in Event #14 of WSOP Online on GGPoker: the $1,500 Super Turbo Bounty Pot-Limit Omaha. The event drew 721 entrants, built a $1,027,425 prize pool and paid the top 84. Veldhuis, who has recently moved to Costa Rica with his family, reached the final table of seven and finished fifth for $41,465, made up of a $30,118 prize and $11,347 in bounties.
His elimination was painful. He got his chips in with pocket aces against a player called "Cursed79," who had flopped top set with a straight draw. The set held, and Cursed79 collected the bounty. In PLO, aces preflop are a favourite against most holdings but not by a wide margin, and once the flop gave the opponent top set with a straight draw, the aces were the underdog. It is a textbook example of why Omaha is such a high-variance game.
The winner was Kai "Lasi Paihinen" Lehto of Finland, who took $147,225 along with the bracelet, a $30,000 Super Pass to the 2026 WSOP Paradise Super Main Event and $78,030 in bounties. Cursed79 was second for $97,263, followed by Murilo Milhomem (third, $63,760) and Erick "xErick" Mossinger (fourth, $50,023).
How rare was the run?
The detail that makes this notable is the history. It was Veldhuis's first WSOP final table since 2009. His previous deepest WSOP run was a seventh-place finish in the $40,000 No-Limit Hold'em 40th Anniversary Event in Las Vegas that year. In 2026, he cashed in 8 of the 14 completed WSOP Online bracelet events on GGPoker, and two weeks before the final table he finished 10th of 771 in the $1,000 Mystery Bounty PLO for $4,522 and 16th of 719 in the $2,500 Turbo NLH Championship for $12,123.
That consistency suggests this was not a lucky single run. Cashing in more than half of the completed events in a series with large fields and bounty formats requires disciplined volume and strong fundamentals. Online formats also reward high-volume grinders, and Veldhuis's streams give him a unique feedback loop: every decision is public and gets scrutinised by thousands of viewers.
What this tells us about GGPoker's pull
Veldhuis is the latest in a line of high-profile moves to GGPoker. PokerListings noted that GGPoker still operates in the Netherlands and has been expanding its team, signing Michael Mizrachi, Bertrand "Elky" Grospellier and Rodrigo Marques in 2025. For a streamer with a loyal European audience, the fit is natural: the site offers big tournament series, huge fields and a bracelet-awarding online platform through WSOP Online. If you are curious about where GGPoker sits in the market, our poker networks overview compares the major platforms, and our tournaments page explains the types of events these sites run.
Lessons for your own game
There are a few practical takeaways for players, whether or not you stream:
Specialise, then diversify. Veldhuis's best 2026 results came in bounty and PLO formats. If you want to pick up lessons, Omaha strategy and our Texas hold'em guide show how different the games are. Preflop equity is closer in PLO, so hands run closer and postflop skill matters more.
Understand variance. Getting aces in preflop and running into a flopped set is part of PLO, even in an event with a seven-figure prize pool. The loss does not mean the play was wrong. Our poker odds page and equity explainer are good places to learn how often such situations come up.
Plan your bankroll for bounty formats. Super turbo bounty events combine fast structures with knockout prizes. That produces fat tails: your results will swing. Read our bankroll management guide before playing events like a $1,500 buy-in on a $20,000 roll.
Manage tilt. After a hard elimination the best thing you can do is step away. The tilt glossary entry is a quick refresher.
Looking ahead
With the WSOP Online series done, attention shifts to WSOP Paradise in the Bahamas in December, where Super Passes won online turn into seats in the Super Main Event. Veldhuis, who finished short of a bracelet this year, now has the benefit of a deep run, a new streaming setup and a new home base. Whether he adds a bracelet to his résumé or not, he has restarted a high-profile career in a year when many assumed his best days as a visible online personality were behind him.
Bottom line
Lex Veldhuis left PokerStars after 17 years, launched on GGPoker, won early, reached a WSOP final table for the first time since 2009 and finished fifth for $41,465 in a field of 721. He did not take down the bracelet, but his year is a case study in how a poker personality can rebuild around new platforms, new formats and a new audience, and in how thin the line is between a bracelet and a fifth-place cheque in Pot-Limit Omaha.