Niklas "Lena900" Astedt has spent the better part of a decade making the case that he is the best online tournament player who has ever lived. The 2026 World Championship of Online Poker gave him another 24 hours of evidence: two WCOOP titles in a single day, taking his career total to 14.
The Swede's first came in the $1,050 Pot-Limit Omaha event — not even his primary game — where he outlasted 86 entrants and beat Brazil's Murilo "Fruble" Milhomem heads-up for $20,976 and his 13th WCOOP crown. Roughly a day later he returned for the $5,200 No-Limit Hold'em Thursday Thrill High Roller, topped a 58-player field stacked with elite regulars, and collected a bounty-inclusive $103,282 for number 14.
The field he beat
The Thursday Thrill run is the one that deserves attention. Astedt eliminated Ole "wizowizo" Schemion and Jamie "jamiedwan21" Dwan along the way, then beat Portugal's Joao "Naza114" Vieira heads-up. Vieira is one of the most accomplished online tournament players of the past decade in his own right. Schemion has a résumé spanning live super high rollers and online majors.
A 58-entry $5,200 field at WCOOP is not a soft spot. It is arguably the toughest regular tournament on the online calendar outside of the $10K+ events — which, as it happens, Schemion won the same week, taking the $10,300 NLHE PKO High Roller for $139,969 from a 40-player field that included footballer Neymar Jr. in eighth.
A busy week across the series
Astedt was not the only player adding to a collection. The mid-series stretch of WCOOP 2026 produced several notable results:
- Renan "Internett93o" Bruschi (Brazil) won his tenth WCOOP title in the $530 Wednesday Surprise mystery bounty, beating Dmitry "yurasov1990" Yurasov for $31,686
- Anton "WhatIfGod" Bergstrom (Sweden) claimed his fourth WCOOP title in the $1,500 World Championship of Razz, edging "Anton Marcus" for $17,197
- Ole "wizowizo" Schemion took the $10,300 NLHE PKO High Roller for $139,969
Bergstrom's Razz win is worth flagging for anyone who skips the mixed-game portion of these schedules. The World Championship events in the 2026 WCOOP calendar included a $1,050 HORSE Championship, a $1,050 Razz Championship, a $1,050 Triple Draw Championship and a $1,050 PLO8 Championship — buy-ins that are perfectly reachable and fields that are dramatically smaller and, in the lower-variance stud games, often softer than their hold'em equivalents.
Why Astedt's record matters
Fourteen WCOOP titles is a number that resists casual comparison. WCOOP has run annually since 2002 and is the longest-established online major in the game. To win one is a career highlight for most professionals. To win 14 — across PLO, no-limit hold'em, and multiple formats — is something else.
What makes Astedt distinctive is not a single explosive year but the consistency. He has been near the top of online tournament leaderboards for roughly a decade, through multiple shifts in the metagame: the rise of solvers, the normalisation of progressive knockouts, the arrival of short-stack-heavy structures, and the increased professionalisation of the mid-stakes player pool. A player who was a winner in 2016 and is still winning in 2026 has adapted more than once.
The PLO title is the detail that most reveals his approach. Astedt is known primarily as a no-limit player. Adding a four-card title to the collection in a $1,050 championship event suggests a study habit that extends well beyond his main game.
What this means for players
Game selection beats game mastery, up to a point. Astedt's PLO win came in an 86-entry field; his hold'em win came in a 58-entry field. Smaller fields mean better win rates and lower variance per unit of skill edge. The recreational equivalent: if you are a decent hold'em player, a modest amount of Omaha study can unlock event fields with far less competition. Our Hold'em vs Omaha comparison covers the transition and the mistakes most crossovers make.
Mixed games are the most under-studied edge in online poker. Razz, HORSE and triple draw championships at $1,050 attract a fraction of the entries a hold'em event of the same buy-in would. The player pool skews toward specialists at the very top and genuine novices below that — a shape that rewards competent generalists. If you have never taken a stud variant seriously, the poker glossary and poker hand rankings pages are the place to start before you fire an entry.
Bounties change everything about your endgame. Astedt's $103,282 was "bounty-inclusive," and Bruschi's win came in a mystery bounty. Progressive knockout structures systematically reward calling wider against short stacks than standard ICM would suggest, because the bounty has immediate cash value while tournament chips do not. Players who run standard ICM logic in a PKO leave money on the table every session. Our ICM explainer sets out the baseline; the adjustment for bounties is the next step.
Volume is the actual secret. Two titles in 24 hours is not luck, but it is also not possible without playing an enormous number of tournaments. Astedt is famous for multi-tabling schedules that would break most players. If your goal is titles rather than a stable hourly, tournament volume is the lever — which makes bankroll management non-negotiable, because the downswings scale with the volume.
WCOOP 2026 heads into the home straight
The 2026 series runs to September 30, with 350 events on the schedule. The six Main Events land on September 27 and 28 with more than $6.5 million guaranteed between them. The no-limit hold'em side opens on the 27th at three buy-in levels — $109 ($1.25 million GTD), $1,050 ($2 million GTD) and $10,300 ($2.5 million GTD) — which means a player can take a shot at the flagship title for a little over a hundred dollars.
That tiered structure is the smartest thing PokerStars has done with the WCOOP format in years. It preserves prestige at the top while letting a recreational player enter the same event, with the same name on the trophy, for 1% of the high roller buy-in.
For players outside markets where PokerStars operates, the tournaments hub tracks comparable series on other networks, and the real money poker page covers which rooms accept players from where. US-facing alternatives running major series in the same window include Americas Cardroom and BetOnline.
Astedt, for his part, will presumably be playing all six Main Events. On current form, nobody would be surprised if number 15 arrives before the month is out.
Sources: PokerNews, PokerNews WCOOP schedule