Brazil has a real shot at one of the biggest paydays of the 2026 WSOP Online series after Matheus Machado locked up a seat at the star-studded final table of the $10,000 GGMillion$ High Roller, one of the marquee events on GGPoker’s bracelet calendar. Machado enters the unofficial final nine in third place in chips, sandwiched between Swedish crusher Niklas Astedt and German high-stakes regular Ole Schemion, with a first-place prize of $2,228,762 waiting for whoever survives the table.
A Field Built for a Massive Prize Pool
The $10,000 buy-in event drew 1,754 entries, a huge number for a high roller at that price point, and the resulting prize pool swelled to $17,013,800. With 173 players finishing in the money, the tournament rewarded deep, patient play over three grinding days, and by the time the unofficial final table was set on September 29, only nine survivors remained out of a field that included some of the most feared names in online high-stakes poker. Every player left at that table is already guaranteed a minimum payout of $278,847, a score that would headline a career for most recreational players but is treated as a mere consolation prize among specialists who play this level of buy-in every week.
Machado’s Path to the Top Nine
Machado’s run is no fluke. He already owns a WSOP bracelet from the GGMasters Online Championship at WSOP Paradise Online 2024, where he banked $441,452, and he added a third-place finish worth roughly $1 million in the WSOP Super Circuit not long after. Those results establish him as one of the more dangerous mid-major specialists to have made the transition into GGPoker’s highest-stakes tournaments, and his stack of nearly 14.9 million chips, good for 37 big blinds, gives him real ammunition heading into the unofficial final table rather than a short stack simply hoping to survive.
Sitting above him in the counts is Roeland Peeks, whose commanding 68.7 million chips dwarf the rest of the field and give him enormous leverage to apply pressure in the early stages of the final table. Behind Peeks sits Mexico’s Sergio Aido with roughly 30 million, giving the tournament two players with genuinely dominant stacks before the money gets serious. From there, the counts tighten considerably: Machado’s 14.9 million is followed closely by Astedt’s 14.6 million and Schemion’s 13 million, meaning three players separated by less than two million chips will be jockeying for position just to avoid being the first casualties once the real pressure begins.
A Final Table Loaded With Star Power
Beyond the Brazilian storyline, this final table reads like a who’s who of the modern online high-stakes scene. Astedt has long been considered one of the most technically gifted heads-up and short-handed specialists in the world, a reputation built over years of six and seven-figure scores across virtually every major online series. Schemion, an Austrian pro with a long track record in GGMillion$ events specifically, has made a career out of consistently reaching the business end of exactly this kind of tournament. Rounding out the table are Christopher Nguyen, Johannes Straver, Oshri Lahmani and Alessandro De Michele, each holding stacks between roughly 6.7 million and 11.2 million chips, meaning none of them can be dismissed heading into a day that will ultimately crown a champion and hand out a prize north of $2.2 million.
The broadcast itself underlines just how significant GGPoker considers this event. Coverage has aired on the platform’s YouTube channel with a one-hour delay to protect the integrity of the action, and commentary duties were handled by Alex Foxen, one of the most recognizable voices in high-stakes tournament poker. That level of production investment is typically reserved for the events GGPoker views as centerpieces of its WSOP Online calendar, and the GGMillion$ High Roller has firmly established itself in that category over the past several series.
What a Title Would Mean for Machado and for Brazil
A victory here would instantly become the biggest score of Machado’s career by a wide margin, more than five times his previous best result, and it would add another marquee name to an already deep list of Brazilian players who have thrived in GGPoker’s biggest online events over the past few years. Brazilian online grinders have increasingly become fixtures at the final tables of GGMillion$ events, WCOOP championships and WSOP Online bracelet events, and a win of this magnitude would reinforce the country’s growing reputation as one of the most formidable forces in global online poker. It would also validate the specific career path Machado has followed, building results steadily from mid-stakes bracelet wins toward the true high-roller tier where the buy-ins reach five figures and the fields are stacked with proven crushers rather than recreational players hoping to get lucky.
Even a min-cash finish in ninth would represent a strong result relative to his buy-in, but the structure of this final table, with two dominant stacks in Peeks and Aido, a tightly bunched middle tier including Machado, Astedt and Schemion, and four short stacks still capable of doubling into contention, sets up for an unpredictable and closely fought battle for the trophy. Anyone studying how to navigate exactly this kind of multi-way final table pressure, where stack sizes vary wildly and ICM considerations become critical, can find useful grounding in our own primer on tournament fundamentals through the site’s WSOP guidewhich breaks down how professionals think about pay jumps and survival strategy once a final table is reached.
Looking Ahead
With the final table set and a payout of more than $2.2 million on the line for the winner, all eyes in the Brazilian poker community will be on Machado as the tournament resumes. A win would be historic, a deep run would still be lucrative, and either outcome would add another chapter to what has already been one of the most successful stretches for Brazilian talent in the modern history of WSOP Online. As always in tournament poker, results can turn on a single hand, and readers should remember that no outcome, however well the stack is played, is ever guaranteed; poker should be enjoyed as entertainment for adults 18 and over, with responsible-gaming support sought whenever play stops feeling like a game.
