Brazil put on a show at the finale of PokerStars’ 2026 WCOOP Boot Camp, with Gabriel “Gremio CEM” Medeiros winning the $1,050 Main Event High for $48,839 while a wave of Brazilian players flooded the final tables of both marquee events, including a top five sweep in the $109 Main Event Low.
Medeiros Denies an Estonian Foe in the High Main Event
The $1,050 buy-in Main Event High drew 288 entrants, building a $300,000 prize pool that paid out to the final unspecified number of places typical of a WCOOP-style structure. Medeiros went heads-up against NeedBeat of Estonia for the title on August 17 and closed out the tournament without agreeing to a deal, taking the full winner’s share of $48,839 to NeedBeat’s $37,493 as runner-up. Four of the nine players who reached the final table were Brazilian, a ratio that reflects just how deep the country’s online grinding pool has become heading into the peak of the WCOOP calendar.
Winning a Main Event outright in heads-up play, rather than settling for a chop, is notable in itself. Deal-making is common at the business end of high buy-in online tournaments, where two players facing a five or six-figure pay jump often prefer to lock in a guaranteed number rather than gamble it away on a coin flip or a well-timed bluff. Medeiros and NeedBeat instead played it out, with Medeiros closing the show and adding the WCOOP Boot Camp Main Event High title to his résumé.
Brazil Sweeps the Top Five in the Low Main Event
The bigger spectacle came in the $109 Main Event Low, which attracted a massive 5,345 entries and built a $534,500 prize pool, dwarfing the High event in both field size and total money paid out, a familiar pattern for lower buy-in variants that draw a wider recreational audience. The final table came down to a three-way deal, with Belarus’ griura taking the title and a reported $62,760 under the terms of that agreement.
What made the event remarkable was the depth of the Brazilian presence at the top. The top five finishers in the Low Main Event were all Brazilian players. Guilherme “fr4wtz” Padilha finished as runner-up for $54,407 under the deal terms, narrowly missing out on the title itself. Behind him, “sKc.94” took third for $49,632, “tairones13” placed fourth for $26,271, and Jefferson “Jeffin_DF” Medeiros, no relation confirmed to the High Main Event champion, rounded out the top five with an $18,436 min-cash. Five of the nine finalists at that final table were Brazilian in total, an unusually lopsided result even by the standards of a community that has produced a steady run of results throughout the WCOOP Boot Camp series this year.
A Boot Camp Built to Warm Up for WCOOP
PokerStars runs the WCOOP Boot Camp as a lead-in series ahead of its flagship World Championship of Online Poker, giving grinders a chance to sharpen their multi-table tournament game and chase meaningful prize pools before the bigger series begins in earnest. The format mirrors WCOOP itself in miniature, pairing lower buy-in variants that draw thousands of recreational entrants with higher buy-in events that reward a smaller, sharper field, and Main Events at both price points serve as the closing showcase for the series. For newer players still working out the fundamentals of multi-table strategy, understanding concepts covered in our tournament strategy resources can make the difference between min-cashing and running deep the way Brazil’s contingent did in both Main Events.
Part of a Bigger Brazilian Trend Online
The Boot Camp results extend a pattern that has defined much of the online tournament scene in 2026, with Brazilian players consistently packing final tables across GGPoker, PokerStars, and other major sites throughout the WSOP Online and WCOOP seasons. That depth of talent has turned Brazil into one of the most closely watched player pools in online poker, with local grinders often outnumbering every other nationality at major final tables even when the buy-in climbs into four figures. The High Main Event’s four-of-nine Brazilian final table and the Low Main Event’s top-five sweep both fit squarely into that broader story.
What It Means Heading Into WCOOP
With the Boot Camp now in the books, the results serve as a form guide of sorts ahead of WCOOP itself, where many of the same names figure to reappear across the series’ biggest guaranteed events. Medeiros heads into the series with a marquee title and a six-figure combined result across the Boot Camp, while Padilha, sKc.94, tairones13, and Jeffin_DF all leave with a deep run and a min-cash to show for their week, plus the experience of battling deep into a five-figure field. For PokerStars, the Boot Camp did exactly what it was designed to do: build hype, pay out serious money, and set the stage for a WCOOP season where Brazil looks poised to be one of the stories to watch.
