Ilia Arkhipov of Belarus has captured his first WSOP bracelet, outlasting a stacked eight-player final table to win Event #8 of the 2026 WSOP Online series on GGPoker, the $5,000 buy-in 6-Handed No-Limit Hold’em Championship. Arkhipov’s victory was worth $371,793 plus a $30,000 Super Pass into the 2026 WSOP Paradise Super Main Event, and it came at the expense of two Brazilian grinders who both made deep runs into the money.
A Loaded Field for the WSOP Bracelet Event
Event #8 drew 466 entries, building a prize pool of $2,213,500, a healthy number for a mid-series $5,000 championship event on the online calendar. The 6-handed, short-tabled format tends to reward aggressive, well-rounded players over pure grinders, and the composition of the final table reflected exactly that. Rather than a table of unknowns, GGPoker’s Event #8 assembled a genuine murderers’ row of online and live talent, several of whom already own significant results at the highest levels of the game. That depth is part of why the poker community has taken notice of Arkhipov’s win: beating a table like this one for a first bracelet is a different proposition than beating a table of recreational players.
The event ran across two days, August 26 and 27, with the unofficial final table forming on the second day before play was ultimately hand-for-hand until Arkhipov sealed the title. As is standard for GGPoker’s WSOP Online bracelet events, hole cards were shown on a delay to viewers following along, giving the poker world a clear look at how the Belarusian navigated the biggest pots of his career.
How the Final Table Played Out
The official final table results, from first to last, were as follows.
- 1st: Ilia Arkhipov (Belarus) – $371,793 plus WSOP bracelet and $30,000 Super Pass
- 2nd: Yulian Bogdanov (Poland) – $275,809
- 3rd: Vlad Martynenko (Ukraine) – $204,605
- 4th: Mikita Badziakouski (Slovenia) – $151,783
- 5th: Wai Kiat Lee (Malaysia) – $112,598
- 6th: Daniel Da Silva (Brazil) – $83,529
- 7th: Edilson Junior (Brazil) – $61,965
- 8th: Joseph Cheong (Mexico) – $40,867
Joseph Cheong, a familiar name to anyone who follows live tournament poker after his run to third place at the 2010 WSOP Main Event, was the first player eliminated from the unofficial final table, a reminder that even proven live crushers can run into trouble in the faster structures typical of online 6-max play. Wai Kiat Lee, who the poker press has described as a grinder with roughly $26.8 million in live tournament cashes, went out in fifth, while Vlad Martynenko, who already holds a GGPoker online bracelet from 2021, could not add a second and busted in third. That left Arkhipov heads-up against Bogdanov, and the Belarusian closed out the win to claim the title and the bracelet that goes with it.
Two Brazilians Push Deep Into the Money
For the Brazilian poker community, the headline attached to this event is not just Arkhipov’s breakthrough but how close Daniel Da Silva and Edilson Junior came to going even further. Both players navigated a stacked field of 466 entries all the way to the unofficial final table, with Da Silva bowing out in sixth for $83,529 and Edilson Junior following in seventh for $61,965. Making an eight-handed final table in a $5,000 buy-in WSOP bracelet event, against a lineup that included a former WSOP Main Event final tablist and a previous online bracelet winner, is a serious result in its own right, and it continues a pattern of Brazilian players consistently featuring at the sharp end of GGPoker’s WSOP Online series. Neither Da Silva nor Edilson Junior walked away with the bracelet, but both leave the series with a five-figure score and another deep run to add to their résumés.
What a First Bracelet Means for Arkhipov
A WSOP bracelet, even one won online rather than at the physical summer series in Las Vegas, carries real weight in the professional poker world. Since GGPoker began hosting WSOP Online bracelet events, the titles have become a legitimate and heavily contested extension of the WSOP brand, drawing fields that mix dedicated online specialists with established live professionals looking to add an online bracelet to their résumé. For Arkhipov, this was his first, and doing it by outlasting players with the pedigree of Cheong, Martynenko and Lee only adds to the accomplishment. The win also comes with more than just the cash: the attached $30,000 Super Pass guarantees Arkhipov an entry into the 2026 WSOP Paradise Super Main Event, one of the richest events on the calendar held at Baha Mar in the Bahamas, giving him a direct shot at an even larger score later in the year.
Looking Ahead
Event #8 is just one stop on a packed 2026 WSOP Online schedule that continues to roll out bracelet events over the coming weeks, and results like this one tend to shift the leaderboard conversation for Player of the Series honors as the series progresses. For newer players trying to understand how these bracelet series fit together, or simply looking to sharpen their own tournament game before jumping into a field like this one, Poker Pro Academy’s WSOP guide breaks down how the bracelet ecosystem works, from live Las Vegas events to the growing online calendar on GGPoker. As for Arkhipov, Bogdanov, Da Silva and Edilson Junior, all four now carry a career-best or near career-best result forward into the rest of the series, and the WSOP Paradise Super Main Event later this year adds another reason to keep an eye on how their 2026 campaigns develop.
Poker remains a game of skill and variance played for real stakes; players should always wager within their means and treat these results as entertainment and competition rather than a guaranteed path to income. Responsible, 18-plus play is the foundation of a healthy relationship with the game.
