Rafael Yamaki Cashes for $264,182 in WSOP Online Event #7
Brazil’s deep run through the 2026 WSOP Online schedule continued this week as Rafael Yamaki finished fifth in Event #7, the $500 buy-in Mini Main Event, for a $264,182 payday. Yamaki was one of two Brazilians to reach the unofficial final table of the tournament, joined by countryman Mauricio Rocha, who ultimately finished seventh for $157,109.
The result adds another significant score to what has already been a standout summer for Brazilian players on GGPoker’s WSOP Online platform, where a wave of grinders from Sao Paulo to Rio de Janeiro have translated strong online results into six-figure paydays throughout the series.
A Massive Field for a Modest Buy-In
Event #7’s Mini Main Event carried a $5 million guarantee on a $500 buy-in, and the online player pool blew past that number, drawing 12,113 total entries. That volume turned the tournament into one of the largest fields of the entire WSOP Online series, with a prize pool that comfortably exceeded its guarantee and pushed the eventual champion’s payday well past $700,000.
Yamaki and Rocha both arrived at the final table with short-to-medium stacks relative to the leaders. Rocha sat sixth in chips with 26,957,886, good for 16.8 big blinds, while Yamaki was seventh with 21,849,956, or 13.7 big blinds. The chip leaders at that stage were Seiichi Kanemitsu of Japan with 130,291,760, Zhiqiang Shen of China with 126,137,150 and Ziqian Wang of China with 115,819,922, underlining just how top-heavy the counts were once the field reached its final nine.
How the Brazilian Run Ended
Rocha’s tournament ended first, busting in seventh place for a guaranteed $157,109 as the shorter stacks were ground down by the leaders. Yamaki survived deeper into the final table, ultimately moving up to fifth place for $264,182 before running into a cooler. Holding A♣K♦ from the cutoff, Yamaki got his short stack in and was called by Kanemitsu, who tabled A♥10♦. The board ran out A♠10♣8♥10♠, giving Kanemitsu two pair and ending Yamaki’s run one step short of a career-best online score.
The tournament itself was ultimately won by Zhiqiang “panzhanle” Shen of China, who took home $747,545 along with the coveted WSOP bracelet. Seiichi “Ditto1031” Kanemitsu, the player who eliminated Yamaki, finished as runner-up for $576,111, while Malaysia’s Lee Wee “BadbeatSong” Liew rounded out the podium in third for $444,257.
Part of a Bigger Brazilian Wave at WSOP Online
Yamaki and Rocha’s final-table appearances are part of a broader pattern this summer, with Brazilian players consistently converting deep runs in WSOP Online events into significant paydays across a range of buy-ins and formats. GGPoker’s WSOP Online series has become an increasingly important stage for Brazil’s competitive online scene, offering bracelet events and mini-buy-in tournaments with guarantees large enough to produce life-changing scores from relatively modest investments. A $500 entry returning more than half a million dollars to the final table, as Event #7 did, is exactly the kind of leverage that keeps online series like this one popular with grinders looking to shorten the variance of live travel while still chasing WSOP hardware.
The 2026 edition of WSOP Online runs across dozens of bracelet events on GGPoker, spanning buy-ins from the low hundreds of dollars up to high-roller territory, and Event #7’s Mini Main Event is designed specifically to funnel a mass-market audience into a WSOP bracelet chase without demanding a five-figure entry. That structure rewards exactly the kind of patient, short-stack survival that carried both Yamaki and Rocha deep into the field, even though neither ultimately had the stack to see off the tournament’s Asian-dominated chip leaders once play reached its final table.
For players hoping to build their own results in tournaments like this one, understanding the format is the first step. Poker Pro Academy’s WSOP guide walks through how bracelet events, satellites and online series like WSOP Online fit into the broader World Series of Poker calendar, along with tips on bankroll management for high-variance mass-field tournaments.
What Comes Next
With the WSOP Online 2026 schedule still rolling out further bracelet events, Yamaki, Rocha and the rest of Brazil’s online contingent will have plenty of additional chances to add to their results this summer. A near miss like this one, falling just short of a final table with real bracelet equity, is often the kind of experience that sharpens a player’s endgame for the next deep run. Fifth place for $264,182 is a strong result by any measure, but for a player clearly capable of going deep in a 12,000-plus entry field, it may end up being remembered as a stepping stone rather than a peak.
As with all forms of tournament poker, results like these carry genuine variance and no outcome is guaranteed. Online poker is intended for players 18 and older, and bankroll discipline remains essential even when a $500 buy-in can, on the right day, turn into a quarter-million-dollar score.
