Kyle Grupp of Clarence, New York, has won the 2026 WSOP Circuit Turning Stone main event, collecting $246,362 and his first career gold ring. The $1,700 no-limit hold'em tournament in Verona, New York drew 996 entries across three starting flights and built a prize pool of $1,508,940, comfortably above its $1 million guarantee. For Grupp, it is the biggest live payday of his career, and it arrived after several near misses at the same series.
The result in numbers
The Turning Stone main event ran with three starting flights followed by two days of combined-field play. With 996 entries, the prize pool of $1,508,940 cleared the $1 million guarantee by roughly half a million dollars, a sign of healthy demand for regional circuit events in the northeast. The top 114 finishers cashed, and Grupp took home $246,362 along with 912 Card Player Player of the Year points, his third POY-qualified final table of 2026. That puts him just outside the top 350 in the season standings.
The payday surpasses the $165,000 he earned for 54th place in the 2025 WSOP Main Event, and his lifetime live cashes now exceed $836,000. He had also come close to this title before: he finished fourth in the same event in 2023 and sixth at WSOP International Circuit Montreal in 2025. Persistence in a tournament series like this is a theme worth noting, because the combination of repeated deep runs and eventual success is the classic arc of a circuit grinder.
Final table results
| Place | Player | Payout | POY Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kyle Grupp | $246,362 | 912 |
| 2 | Joel Cattelane | $164,220 | 760 |
| 3 | Steven Tabb | $114,576 | 608 |
| 4 | Daniel Wagner | $81,282 | 456 |
| 5 | Greg Ostrander | $58,647 | 380 |
| 6 | Tina Panichi | $43,050 | 304 |
| 7 | Cathy Schenone | $32,160 | 228 |
| 8 | Hamid Izadi | $24,457 | 152 |
| 9 | Bryan Swanson | $18,940 | 76 |
Seven players returned for the final day with Joel Cattelane, a Syracuse native, as the chip leader. Cattelane's second-place result is his best live finish, topping the $17,665 he earned for 11th in the same event the previous spring. Steven Tabb, who took third, previously finished third in the 2017 WPT Rolling Thunder main event for $122,296, and Greg Ostrander, a Rochester bracelet winner, now has more than $1.3 million in lifetime earnings.
How the final day played out
Cathy Schenone went out in seventh when her pocket sixes lost to Ostrander's pocket nines. Tina Panichi followed in sixth, her A♣Q♣ running into Grupp's K♠K♦ and missing both a gutshot and straight draws. Ostrander, who had won that earlier flip, was eliminated in fifth when his A♠Q♥ lost to Daniel Wagner's 9♥8♥, which flopped two eights for trips. Wagner himself busted in fourth when his A♥Q♠ lost to Cattelane's 8♥8♣ after a king-high runout.
The three-handed stage featured a classic short-stack shove. Grupp shoved 6♠3♠ from the small blind, Tabb called with A♣9♠, and Grupp paired his three on a Q♠8♥3♣J♣2♦ board to eliminate him in third. That left Grupp heads-up against Cattelane, and the final hand saw Grupp holding J♦9♠ against Cattelane's A♣3♣. The flop came K♣9♠7♣, the turn the 10♠ and the river the 2♥, and Grupp's second pair held up.
Reading the key hands
The recurring theme at this final table is ace-queen. Panichi, Ostrander and Wagner all went out holding some version of it, and each time the opponent held a hand with real equity: a pocket pair or a connected suited hand. Ace-queen is a strong holding in most situations, but when it is called by a pair, it is a slight underdog in a coin flip, and when it is dominated by pocket aces or kings, it is a heavy underdog. That distinction is a useful reminder that big hands in tournament poker are not always the best hands to commit your stack with when you are deep.
The six-three suited shove from Grupp is a more interesting study. With short stacks and blinds high relative to those stacks, a wide range of holdings become profitable shoves, because the fold equity from a possible blind steal combined with the hand's raw equity adds up to a positive expected value. The call from Tabb with ace-nine was reasonable too, since ace-nine has strong equity against most shoving ranges. The board simply favored Grupp. If you want to calculate how often a hand like six-three suited beats ace-nine, our poker odds calculator will show you the equity in seconds, and our what is equity explainer covers the concept.
Circuit events and why they matter
The WSOP Circuit is the entry-level pathway to the World Series of Poker brand, with regional stops offering gold rings and the chance to qualify for the Global Casino Championship. Buy-ins in the $1,700 range are accessible to a broad pool of recreational players and semi-professionals, and that accessibility is why the fields are so large. A field of 996 entries is not unusual for the main event at a well-run circuit stop, but it is still a strong turnout, and the fact that the guarantee was exceeded by almost half a million dollars shows that organizers set the target conservatively.
For readers who follow the main series, our WSOP schedule and WSOP 2026 results pages cover the flagship events, and the circuit serves as a feeder for those larger festivals. The circuit has also become a proving ground for local players. Grupp, Cattelane and Ostrander are all from New York State, which underlines how regional circuit stops build their own communities of regulars who know each other's games.
The local-hero angle
Grupp's win is the kind of story that makes regional tournament poker appealing. He lives in Clarence, near Buffalo, and he won a circuit title at a venue within the state. His 2025 WSOP Main Event run, which ended in 54th place and earned him $165,000, showed that he could play on the biggest stage, and the Turning Stone title confirms it. His progression from a deep run in the Main Event to a circuit win is a reminder that the skill set that wins small and mid-sized events translates into bigger fields too, and vice versa.
His previous results at this very event, a fourth-place finish in 2023, also show the value of returning to the same venue year after year. Familiarity with the structure, the playing conditions and the typical field composition can be a small but real edge. Tournament structure matters: the number of levels per day, the starting stack and the blind progression determine how much room there is for skillful play, and regulars who know a structure well can plan accordingly.
What this means for players
First, circuit events offer one of the best value propositions in live poker. A $1,700 buy-in with a prize pool of more than $1.5 million gives the top finishers life-changing money, and the field is not as stacked as a high-roller event. If you want to find events in your region, our tournaments page is a good starting point, and our real money poker guide covers online options for building a bankroll.
Second, short-stack skills are crucial. Several of the key hands at this final table involved players with short or medium stacks making all-in decisions, and the outcomes hinged on coin flips and small edges. If you want to improve in that area, learn push-or-fold basics and understand ICM, which determines how much a chip is worth as the field narrows. Our explainer on what is ICM is a useful reference, and the poker strategy hub has more.
Third, protect your bankroll. A single tournament win can transform a season, but most players will not win one in their lifetime. If you plan to travel to circuit stops, our bankroll management guide explains how to budget for buy-ins and travel without risking money you cannot afford to lose.
The bottom line
Kyle Grupp's victory at WSOP Circuit Turning Stone is a $246,362 payday, a first gold ring and the culmination of years of near misses at the same event. With 996 entries, a prize pool of $1,508,940 and a final table full of regional regulars, it was a good advertisement for the circuit's role in American tournament poker. For Grupp, it is a career-defining result and a reminder that persistence pays in a game where variance is the only constant.