A Marathon Final Table in Rio de Janeiro
Argentina’s Ariel Martinez claimed the biggest title of his career at the KSOP Rio de Janeiro Main Event, the closing tournament of the 2026 KSOP GGPoker season. Martinez outlasted a 338 entry field to bank R$250,000 after a heads up battle that stretched nearly 11 hours, one of the longest deciding matches the Brazilian live circuit has seen this year.
The KSOP GGPoker Main Event has become one of the marquee stops for Latin American grinders chasing both prestige and a spot on the region’s growing live tournament calendar. Rio de Janeiro hosted the finale of the 2026 season, and the Main Event drew a field large enough to produce a final table that mixed Argentine and Brazilian players almost evenly, a pairing that would end up defining the entire story of the week.
The Final Hand: A Queen Kicker Holds Up
After nearly four hours without a single elimination at the final table, the pace of the tournament slowed to a crawl before picking up again once the money bubble on the stone bubble burst. By the time only Martinez and fellow Argentine Nicolas Sbrissa remained, both players had agreed to a chip neutral deal that locked up R$250,000 each, turning the rest of the match into a battle for the trophy rather than extra money.
That battle lasted close to 11 hours. In the final hand, both players got their stacks in before the flop, Martinez holding Queen Seven against Sbrissa’s Nine Eight. Neither hand was in great shape to flop much, and the board ran out five, six, ten, ten, jack, leaving the pot to be decided by the pair of tens already sitting on the board. With no straight, flush or trips for either player, kickers took over, and Martinez’s queen beat Sbrissa’s nine to end the tournament and send the trophy to Argentina.
Argentina Sweeps the Top of the Field
The finish was a continuation of a theme that had already been building across the KSOP Rio de Janeiro stop. Days earlier, fellow Argentine Mateo Balmaceda had won the event’s Freezeout tournament on a day where Argentine players dominated the leaderboards across the festival. The Main Event result pushed that narrative even further. The top four finishers, Martinez, Sbrissa, Jorge Preciado in third for R$140,000 and Christian Sare in fourth for R$100,000, were all Argentine, an unusually clean sweep for a Main Event held on Brazilian soil.
Brazilian players still made their presence felt further down the final table. Eduardo Dantas finished fifth for R$75,000, Walter Oaquim took sixth for R$53,000, Peterson Machado was seventh for R$34,700, Fabricio Nociolini eighth for R$23,000 and Paulo Gini rounded out the final table in ninth for R$16,500. It was a result that showed the depth of competitive talent on both sides of the Rio de la Plata, even if the biggest prizes ended up crossing the border back to Argentina.
Two Trophies in Two Days for Martinez
Martinez’s week in Rio nearly did not happen at all. According to tournament reporting, he had considered skipping the trip to Brazil entirely before a friend convinced him to make the journey. That decision paid off quickly. The day before the Main Event reached its final table, Martinez had already won a separate Omaha event at the same festival, meaning he left Rio de Janeiro with two trophies from a single trip rather than one. Going deep in two different formats in the same week, against different fields and different skill sets, is the kind of result that tends to raise a player’s profile quickly on the Latin American circuit, and Martinez’s name is likely to be one tournament organizers and other grinders watch closely heading into 2027.
What the Result Means for the KSOP GGPoker Circuit
For the KSOP GGPoker brand, closing out the 2026 season with a 338 entry Main Event and an 11 hour heads up battle is the kind of storyline organizers hope for when they build a live festival calendar. It gives the series a dramatic finish, a cross border rivalry angle between Argentina and Brazil, and a champion with a compelling personal story about nearly staying home. As Rio de Janeiro continues to establish itself as one of the key live poker destinations in Latin America alongside events like the Brazilian Series of Poker, results like Martinez’s win add to the case that the region’s talent pool, and its prize pools, are only getting deeper.
Players studying hands like the Martinez versus Sbrissa decider, where no one improved past the board and the pot came down to kickers, can brush up on exactly how hand strength is ranked and compared by reviewing Poker Pro Academy’s poker hand rankings guidea useful refresher for anyone trying to understand why a queen high kicker was enough to win an eleven hour battle for a Main Event title.
