Niklas Astedt is doing it again. The Swedish online specialist claimed two WCOOP titles inside a single 24-hour window during the 2026 World Championship of Online Poker on PokerStars, adding his 13th and 14th career WCOOP crowns and, along the way, denying a Brazilian player a first title of his own.
Title Number 13 Comes at Brazil’s Expense
Astedt’s first win of the stretch came in a $1,050 Pot-Limit Omaha event that drew 86 entries. He battled through the field and eventually reached heads-up against Murilo “Fruble” Milhomem, one of Brazil’s most active online grinders in mid and high stakes PLO. Astedt closed out the match to take home $20,976 and his 13th WCOOP title, edging out a Brazilian player who came agonizingly close to a maiden WCOOP win of his own on one of the series’ biggest stages.
PLO has become an increasingly important part of Astedt’s résumé over the past few years, and this result adds another data point to his reputation as one of the most well-rounded mixed-game grinders in the $1,000-plus buy-in range. For newer players trying to understand why hand strength works so differently in Omaha than in hold’em, Poker Pro Academy’s poker hand rankings guide is a useful starting point before jumping into four-card pots.
Backing It Up in the Thursday Thrill High Roller
Rather than take a night off to celebrate, Astedt returned to the virtual felt and final-tabled the $5,200 No-Limit Hold’em Thursday Thrill High Roller, one of the more prestigious mid-week fixtures on the WCOOP schedule. The 58-entry field included well-known high-stakes regulars Ole “wizowizo” Schemion and Jamie “jamiedwan21” Dwan, both of whom were eliminated before the final two players squared off.
Astedt’s heads-up opponent this time was Joao “Naza114” Vieira, giving the session a second Brazilian storyline in as many events. Astedt closed out the win for a bounty-inclusive $103,282, pushing his tally for the day to two titles and roughly $124,000 in prize money, along with WCOOP title number 14 for his career.
One of Online Poker’s Most Durable Grinders
Astedt, who plays under the screen name “Lena900,” has been a fixture at the top of online poker leaderboards for more than a decade, with results spanning WCOOP, SCOOP, and other major series across multiple sites. Multi-title days like this one are not a new phenomenon for him. He has produced similar bursts in past WCOOP series, often by mixing mixed-game specialist events like PLO with the bigger no-limit hold’em high rollers where the online scene’s toughest lineups tend to gather.
What stood out about this particular day was the quality of opposition in both fields. Beating Milhomem heads-up in PLO and then getting through a stacked field that included Schemion and Dwan in the same 24 hours is the kind of double result that online poker’s grinding community pays close attention to, even when neither individual score reaches seven figures.
Brazil’s Growing Footprint at WCOOP 2026
The near misses for Milhomem and Vieira arrive during a series in which Brazilian players have already made plenty of noise. Earlier in the same WCOOP, Renan Bruschi won a record tenth WCOOP title of his own career, with countryman Gabriel Tavares finishing runner-up in a separate high roller event. Even in defeat, Milhomem and Vieira’s deep runs against one of the format’s most feared closers add to the picture of a Brazilian online contingent that is now a constant presence at WCOOP final tables, not just an occasional guest.
That depth matters for a series of this scale. The 2026 WCOOP runs from September 6 through 30 on PokerStars, spanning 121 tournaments and roughly 350 individual titles across buy-in levels from a few dollars up to five-figure high rollers. With three-plus weeks still to play out, the series remains a proving ground where results like Astedt’s, and near-misses like Milhomem’s and Vieira’s, will keep piling up.
What It Means Heading Into the Final Stretch
For Astedt, the two wins are a reminder that volume and versatility remain a winning combination in modern online poker, especially during a month-long series where specialists who can move between game types have a structural edge over players who stick to a single format. For Brazil’s online community, the results are a near miss rather than a breakthrough, but the fact that two different Brazilian players reached heads-up against one of the format’s toughest competitors on the same day says plenty about the depth building in the country’s online ranks.
As WCOOP 2026 rolls toward its final events, expect more of both storylines: established closers like Astedt chasing further titles, and a wave of Brazilian talent looking to convert final-table appearances into the country’s next WCOOP champion. Online tournament poker at this level carries significant variance even for the game’s best players, and results should always be viewed as entertainment rather than a guaranteed source of income.
