Alisson Piekazewicz has won the BSOP Championshipthe R$25,000 buy-in centerpiece of the BSOP Winter series, defeating a stacked 240 entry field at the WTC Sheraton in Sao Paulo to collect a first place prize of R$1,150,000. The victory adds yet another marquee title to what has already been a career defining year for the player from Parana, and it caps a tournament that spent its final days generating headlines well before the champion was even decided.
A High Buy-In Stop Lives Up to Its Billing
At R$25,000, the BSOP Championship sits above most stops on the BSOP Winter calendar, positioning it as a high roller style test that concentrates the series’ most experienced regulars and touring professionals into a single event. That structure guaranteed a minimum cash of R$50,000 to anyone reaching the money, and it meant the 240 player field was unusually strong from the opening flight through the unofficial final table. Colombian pro Carlos Serrano had carried the chip lead into the final stretch of the tournament, and the event’s televised table had already produced one of the more talked about hands of the entire BSOP Winter series when Gil Cebola folded pocket aces to a big bluff two days before the final table played out.
Against that backdrop, the final table itself delivered exactly the kind of tight, well contested finish the buy-in level promised. Serrano, despite entering the closing stages among the favorites, ultimately fell in seventh place for R$165,000, a result that still added a significant score to his summer but left him short of the title he had positioned himself to chase. Sergio Andrade pushed into fourth for R$380,000 before exiting, and Renan Bruschi rounded out the podium chase in third for R$505,000, setting up a heads up battle between Piekazewicz and Gualter Salles for the title.
Piekazewicz Closes It Out
When the dust settled, Piekazewicz emerged on top, sending Salles to a runner-up finish worth R$765,000 while claiming the R$1,150,000 top prize and the trophy that goes with winning the BSOP Winter’s flagship championship event. The R$1.15 million payday ranks among the larger single tournament scores of the entire BSOP Winter schedule, rivaling even the series’ own Main Event in prestige despite a considerably smaller field than the marquee event draws.
The win continues a remarkable run for Piekazewicz in 2026, a year that has already included a title in the GGMillion$ High Rollers on PokerStars and a score in the Triton Series in Jeju, South Korea, placing him among a small group of Brazilian players competing successfully on some of poker’s biggest international stages while still returning home to dominate the domestic live circuit. He also picked up the R$310,000 High Roller Championship earlier this year at the BSOP Summer festival, meaning the BSOP Championship marks his second six figure BSOP title of the year and further cements his status as one of the most consistent forces on the Brazilian tournament scene.
What Made This Field So Difficult
Part of what makes the BSOP Championship victory notable is the caliber of the field it came against. A R$25,000 buy-in naturally filters out recreational players in a way lower stakes BSOP events do not, leaving a table stacked almost entirely with grinders who play tournaments professionally or semi-professionally. That dynamic produced a Day 3 in which the chip counts stayed unusually bunched near the top, with several players separated by only a few hundred thousand in chips heading into the money bubble, a sign of just how evenly matched the surviving field had become before the final table even convened.
Outlasting that kind of table, and doing it in a tournament that had already generated its own storylines around Serrano’s chip lead and Cebola’s high profile fold, is part of what makes Piekazewicz’s win stand out even in a year already full of highlights for him. Readers newer to tournament poker who want to understand why big pocket pairs sometimes still need to be released, the exact situation that defined the event’s most viral hand, can review the fundamentals in Poker Pro Academy’s poker hand rankings guide.
Looking Ahead
With the BSOP Championship now in his trophy case alongside international scores from PokerStars and Triton, Piekazewicz enters the second half of 2026 as one of the names to watch heading into the rest of the Brazilian live poker calendar. For a series that already produced a full slate of storylines throughout the BSOP Winter stop in Sao Paulo, from Neymar Jr’s invitational run to Serrano’s near miss at the top prize, the championship’s final result gives the festival a fitting headline act to close on. Whether Piekazewicz can keep pace with this level of production through the rest of the year remains to be seen, but for now, few players in Brazilian poker are having a stronger 2026.
