The 25th World Championship of Online Poker ended with a champion who sang to his stream. Argentina's Alejandro "Papo" Lococo won the WCOOP $1,050 Main Event on October 1, 2026, taking home $343,242 after beating Ireland-based "Goodarla" heads-up. The WCOOP Main Event result closed out a series that ran from late August through the end of September on PokerStars, and it gave the festival a crowd-pleasing finish.
How the $1,050 WCOOP Main Event Played Out
The $1,050 Main Event drew 2,310 entries and built a prize pool of roughly $2.3 million. First place paid $343,242, which is more than 300 times the buy-in. For a mid-stakes online tournament, that is a life-changing score for most of the players who sit down in these fields.
Lococo started the final day third in chips. That detail matters, because the final table of a large-field online tournament rarely belongs to the chip leader. Lococo climbed through a field that included Austria's Jorge Abreu, who had arrived as chip leader with more than 36.7 million chips, Canada's "feedme12" and Brazil's "calldeKhig."
The final five finished like this:
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alejandro Lococo | Argentina | $343,242 |
| 2 | Goodarla | Ireland | $244,673 |
| 3 | Jorge Abreu | Austria | $174,412 |
| 4 | feedme12 | Canada | $124,327 |
| 5 | calldeKhig | Brazil | $88,624 |
The final hand went to Lococo with Q♦4♠ against Goodarla's 7♥10♥. A queen-high hand against a ten-high hand is not a glamorous way to win $343,242, but it is a reminder of how heads-up poker works. When stacks are shallow, a hand like queen-four is a coin flip against most holdings, and the winner is often the player who got in with the right frequency over the preceding hands rather than the one with the better cards on the last one.
Who Is Alejandro "Papo" Lococo?
Lococo is an Argentinian poker player and rapper, and he leaned into both identities after the win. According to the tournament report, he celebrated by singing "Campeon!" with his stream viewers. That detail captures something about modern online poker. Streaming has made the player's personality part of the product, and a big win is now a shared event with an audience rather than a private moment in a bedroom.
For poker fans, that matters. A WCOOP title carries prestige because the series is the online counterpart to the biggest live festivals, and PokerStars has marked this as the 25th edition with a $40 million guarantee. A winner who shares the moment live helps turn a tournament result into a story that spreads beyond the poker bubble. If you follow poker content creators, you have seen how a single stream clip can drive new players toward a site.
Why a Third-Place Start Is a Strong Spot
Final-table chip position gets overrated in online tournaments. Players who begin the last day in the middle of the pack often have more flexibility than the leader, who is a target, and more chips than the short stacks, who must gamble. Lococo began third and had room to pick spots, apply pressure on the shorter stacks and avoid confrontations with the big stack until the field thinned.
Final-table strategy at this level leans heavily on ICM, or Independent Chip Model pressure. When the pay jumps are large, as they were here with fifth place earning $88,624 and first place earning $343,242, the money value of each chip is not linear. Mid-stack players can often exploit shorter stacks that cannot afford to call off, while leaders must decide when to put their stack at risk. A player who understands those dynamics can win without ever holding the largest stack for long. If you want to study how those spots work, our poker strategy hub is a good place to start.
WCOOP Context: Three Main Events, Three Stories
The $1,050 Main Event was one of three headline championships to conclude the series. The $10,300 World Championship, which went to Brazil's Felipe Boianovsky for $551,632, drew a smaller field of 289 entries and a prize pool near $2.9 million. The $109 Main Event had 14,533 entries and a $1,453,300 pool, with Ukraine's "ihor888888" winning $172,022. We cover both in separate stories on this site.
Together, the three results show the range of the modern online tournament ecosystem. A $109 buy-in can create a six-figure score for a recreational player. A $1,050 buy-in appeals to semi-professionals and serious amateurs. A $10,300 buy-in is mostly professional territory. PokerStars has built the series so that each tier has its own marquee prize, and players can pick the tier that fits their bankroll.
What This Means for Players
The practical takeaways are straightforward.
Bankroll discipline matters more than any single result. A $1,050 entry in a field of 2,310 players is a high-variance bet. Even strong players cash in a small share of such events, and winning is rarer still. Standard guidance is to hold a bankroll of many buy-ins for the stakes you play, which we discuss in our bankroll management guide.
Deep runs are built on patient early play. Lococo did not need to be the chip leader. He needed to survive, accumulate chips steadily and enter the final table with enough ammunition. Players who treat early levels as a chance to gather chips without taking unnecessary risks tend to reach the money with more options.
Satellites remain the cheapest way into big fields. Many players who sit in $1,050 events qualify through smaller buy-in satellites. If you do not want to pay full price, see our guide on satellite strategy and the broader tournament section for how to find qualifiers on different sites.
Shop around. PokerStars is not the only site running big tournament series. If you play online, compare offers on our real money poker page and check which networks serve your region, because availability differs between the US, Canada and the UK.
The Bigger Picture for Online Tournament Poker
The WCOOP results arrive at a moment when online tournament poker is evolving quickly. Mystery bounty and progressive knockout formats have grown, large-field turbo events have become common, and global festivals now compete for the same player pool within days of each other. The WCOOP remains the benchmark among those because of its history and its size.
That history is worth a reminder. WCOOP has existed for 25 years, and players have used it to establish reputations. Brazil's players have been especially strong this year, and PokerTube reported that Brazilian players led the 2026 series with 58 titles as of September 23, though the three Main Event winners came from Argentina, Brazil and Ukraine. The Latin American presence is part of a larger trend, because the region has produced a growing share of online tournament champions over the past decade.
For readers who prefer cash games to tournaments, the same dynamic applies in a different form. Big tournament wins grab headlines, but steady cash-game players often earn more consistently. We compare the two formats in our cash games vs tournaments piece if you are deciding where to focus your time and money.
Final Thoughts
Lococo's win is a good story because it combines an underdog start, a charismatic personality and a big payday. It also illustrates a durable truth about tournament poker: the winner is rarely the player who looked strongest on paper at the start of the day, but the one who made the most correct decisions under pressure. With $343,242 on the line and a WCOOP title as the reward, Lococo made enough of them.
PokerStars will turn its attention to the next series, and fans can expect the usual stream of results, records and rumors about the next big guarantee. In the meantime, the WCOOP $1,050 Main Event stands as a reminder that online poker still produces moments that feel as large as any live final table.
Poker involves risk. Only play with money you can afford to lose, and check that online poker is legal where you live before you deposit.