Brazil’s Franklin Magalhães banked $130,129 on Monday, August 3, after winning GGPoker’s GGMasters $150, closing out an international final table with a three-way deal rather than playing the tournament all the way down to one winner. The title keeps the weekly GGMasters crown on Brazilian soil for another week and adds a healthy score to a resume built almost entirely online over several years of grinding.
A Field That Comfortably Beat the Guarantee
The GGMasters $150 drew 8,096 entries, a field big enough to comfortably clear the tournament’s advertised guarantee and push the prize pool well past the seven-figure mark. Fields of that size are typical for the GGMasters brand, which has become one of GGPoker’s most reliable mid-stakes weekly draws thanks to a low buy-in that keeps the tournament accessible while still building a prize pool that rewards a deep run. Magalhães needed to survive that entire field, plus a lengthy multi-day structure, before he ever saw a final table.
The GGMasters format itself is designed around volume rather than a punishing buy-in, which is exactly why it draws such large fields week after week. A $150 entry is well within reach for a serious recreational player, yet the tournament still pays out enough at the top to change a winner’s month, which is part of why the weekly title has become something of a running competition among the site’s most active national player pools. Brazil has won the title often enough in recent months that a repeat appearance in the winner’s circle barely raises an eyebrow among regulars who follow the schedule closely.
A Three-Way Deal Ends It
Rather than play down to a natural finish, Magalhães and the two other short-stacked survivors agreed to an ICM-style deal once the tournament reached three players, splitting the remaining prize money according to their stack sizes and chip equity before the trophy was decided. Under the terms of that deal, Magalhães collected $130,129 for first, a Mexican player known online as mastur6ek took $108,987 for second, and Russia’s Borsalino rounded out the podium with $108,160 for third. Magalhães closed out the formality that followed the deal on the back of a hot run of pocket jacks through the closing stages of the final table, eventually ending matters with a preflop all-in that cracked mastur6ek’s hand. Pocket jacks are a notoriously tricky holding to play profitably, prone to running into bigger pairs or getting outdrawn by overcards, so seeing the hand hold up repeatedly on the way to a title is the kind of variance every deep tournament run needs at some point. Players who want a refresher on how big pairs stack up against each other can check Poker Pro Academy’s guide to poker hand rankings for the full breakdown.
The Rest of the International Final Table
The remainder of the final table reflected just how global GGPoker’s mid-stakes schedule has become. Belarus’s “blooded idol” finished fourth for $63,334, Thailand’s “NSCP” took fifth for $47,493, and Taiwan’s “ihop” rounded out the top half of the table in sixth for $35,615. Brazil had a second representative deep in the field as well, with Lucas Masala finishing seventh for $26,707. Venezuela’s “THANOS29” took eighth for $20,028, and Argentina’s Agustín Castresana, playing as A Castresana, closed out the payouts in ninth for $15,018.
Another Brazilian Title on the Same Monday
Magalhães was not the only Brazilian collecting a trophy that day. In a separate tournament running the same Monday, Felipe Boianovsky won the Monday Monster Stack High Roller, a $1,050 buy-in event that drew 168 entries, for $32,637. Pedro Padilha finished third in that event for $20,988, while fellow Brazilians Matheus Dias, playing as GiorgianArrasca, and Brunno Botteon rounded out the final table in fourth and fifth. Two Brazilian titles landing on the same Monday is a reminder of just how deep the country’s online player pool has become on GGPoker’s mid-stakes and high-stakes schedules alike.
A Long-Time Grinder’s Breakthrough Week
Franklin Magalhães is not a new name to Brazilian online poker circles, even if Monday’s result is among his largest to date. He has built a reputation over five or six years as a consistent mid-stakes grinder, with previous titles in PokerStars Bounty Builder events at both the $109 and $162 buy-in levels, along with a final table appearance in the Sunday Million in past years. Unlike some of the country’s better-known exports, his record so far is built almost entirely online rather than on the live tournament circuit, which makes a six-figure score like Monday’s GGMasters win a significant step up rather than a routine result. It is also a useful reminder for newer players that a strong career can be built entirely through consistent online volume, without ever setting foot in a live tournament room, provided the discipline around bankroll and game selection stays in place across the inevitable losing stretches.
The GGMasters brand runs every week on GGPoker, which means Brazilian players chasing the next title, or simply looking to build their own bankroll in a similar structure, do not have to wait long for another shot. As with any tournament, the buy-in should be treated as a fixed cost within a bankroll set in advance rather than money expected back, since even strong, experienced grinders lose far more often than they win across a full schedule of events. Real money poker is restricted to players who are 18 or older, or the legal age in their own jurisdiction.
