If you want to catch up on poker news from August 31–September 6, 2026, this was the week online poker moved seven-figure prizes and live high-stakes play opened a new name in Jeju. GGPoker's WSOP Online paid its largest first prize of the festival so far in the $1,500 Millionaire Maker, Triton Super High Roller Series Jeju II crowned a champion in Event 1, Dutch streamer Lex Veldhuis reached a bracelet final table for the first time since 2009, and PokerStars started the 25th WCOOP. In Japan, episode six of ABEMA POKER INVITATIONAL reached heads-up.

The sections below stick to reporting you can verify from sources dated in this window—chiefly PokerNews, SpadePoker, Poker.org, Triton's own channels, and ABEMA TIMES. Last week's roundup already covered Manuel Ferrari's EPT Barcelona Main Event win; this week leaves that title alone and follows the events that actually closed or opened between August 31 and September 6.

Benjamin Rolle Wins the WSOP Online Millionaire Maker for $1.37 Million

According to PokerNews on September 2, 2026, Austria's Benjamin Rolle won Event #12, the $1,500 Millionaire Maker, for $1,366,929 and his second gold bracelet. The tournament drew 5,518 entries and built a $7,863,150 prize pool. Day 1 trimmed the field to a nine-handed final table, where $4,551,363 was still in play, including the seven-figure first prize. The champion also collected a $30,000 Super Pass into the live Super Main Event at 2026 WSOP Paradise.

PokerNews notes that Rolle finished eighth in a WSOP Online Main Event for $661,848, then won that same event in 2025 for $3,907,707 and his first bracelet. He is also the founder of the Raise Your Edge training site, so the name is familiar even if you mainly follow strategy content rather than bracelet lists. He sat down at the final table with 127 big blinds, well clear of Adrian Strobel (67) and Loris Gauthier (44), both also listed from Austria in the GGPoker lobby. Germany's Marcel Kessler busted ninth for $92,590, the only payout under six figures. Jeremie Zouari took eighth ($129,600), Song Li seventh ($181,425), then two Ukrainians: Denys Chufarin sixth ($253,995) and Andrii Derzhypilskyi fifth ($355,612). Thailand's Ilsu Lim started the final day with 18 big blinds, last of nine, and laddered to fourth for $497,905.

Three-handed play was an all-Austrian flag row. Strobel finished third for $697,152. Heads-up, Rolle and Gauthier faced a $390,774 gap between first and second and still played it out. No deal was reported. Gauthier collected $976,155 as runner-up. If you only check WSOP Online once a week, the story has shifted from last week's August 24–30 roundup, when Zhiqiang Shen's Mini Main held the festival's largest first prize, to a $1.37 million line on the $1,500.

The same window produced several other bracelets. According to PokerNews on September 1, Spain's Antonio Galiana won Event #9, the $600 Super Six Bounty 6-Handed NLH, for $155,340 including bounties—about 10 percent of a $1,538,430 prize pool from 2,699 entries—and his third career bracelet. PokerNews lists his first as the 2024 $2,500 NLH Freezeout in Las Vegas ($439,395) and his second as the 2025 $5,000 8-Max ($582,008). He beat Brazil's Jonatas Gomes heads-up; Gomes took $108,380. Austria's Roland Rokita won Event #10, the $1,000 Five Card Pot-Limit Omaha, for $106,192 from 755 entries and a $717,250 prize pool, his second bracelet. Event #11, the ¥800 WSOP Asia Championship, drew 35,095 entries and a ¥25,829,920 prize pool (about $3.8 million); Belarus-listed Fartu_Masti_Bro beat Pavel Ignatov heads-up for ¥2,952,453 (about $440,000). On the same night as Rolle, Canada's Santiago Plante won Event #13, the $2,500 Turbo NLH Championship, for $234,332 and his first bracelet from 719 entries and a $1,707,625 prize pool, beating Pakistan's Kiyopon113 heads-up ($183,736).

Alexandros Theologis Captures His First Triton Title in Jeju Event 1

According to PokerNews on September 5, Greece's Alexandros Theologis (Pwndidi in online lobbies) won the opening event of Triton Super High Roller Series Jeju II, the $15,000 NLH 8-Handed, for $642,000 and his first Triton title. SpadePoker reports a field of 206 entries and a $3,090,000 prize pool. The official final table included reigning GPI Player of the Year Punnat Punsri, Adrian Mateos, and Wai Kiat Lee. Online regulars have cashed Triton events for years; closing one is a different line on the résumé, and Theologis said as much afterward.

"I was really looking forward to winning a Triton trophy," he told PokerNews. "I have a second place and a few third places, so to finally close one out definitely feels great." He also described the day as swingy: he lost a lot of chips and came back. PokerNews reports that kings did much of the work earlier—quad kings against Triton debutant Liu Qiang in 17th ($40,000), then flopped trips with kings against Bernhard Binder's aces. Ethan "Rampage" Yau, Xu Yang, Daniel Dvoress, and Xuan Liu were among the early Day 2 exits at $25,500 each. Joao Simao's bust set the final nine. Yin Tao, another Triton debutant, made the televised table and finished fifth for $194,500.

Wang Yang busted ninth before Mateos took eighth ($79,000) and Ehsan Amiri seventh ($108,000). Daniel Rezaei finished sixth ($147,000) after Victor Chong seized the chip lead. Lee went out fourth ($245,500) and Punsri third ($302,000). Heads-up, Chong started as chip leader; Theologis ground him down until the second of two all-in calls, when jack-ten of hearts and diamonds held against eight-four of hearts and clubs. Chong collected $431,000 for second. Theologis is the first overall champion of this Jeju stop, which still has a fortnight of higher buy-ins ahead.

Event #2, the $20,000 NLH 8-Handed, is already rolling. According to SpadePoker and Triton's own channels on September 6, it drew 174 entries and a $3,480,000 prize pool, with $771,000 up top. The bubble was a three-way: Lim Chin Wei's aces against Xuan Liu's kings against Du Qiao's ace-king. Twenty-five players advanced, each guaranteed $35,000. Lim bagged the lead with 4,240,000, Matthias Eibinger sat second with 3,535,000, and Jean-Noel Thorel third with 2,660,000. If you follow Triton as a scoreboard rather than a single headline, Event 1 is the first data point of the stop, not the last.

Lex Veldhuis Reaches a WSOP Final Table for the First Time in 17 Years; Kai Lehto Wins

According to PokerNews on September 4, Dutch regular Lex Veldhuis finished fifth in Event #14, the $1,500 Super Turbo Bounty Pot-Limit Omaha, for $41,465 including bounties. The event drew 721 entries and a $1,027,425 prize pool, with 84 players paid. PokerNews calls it his first World Series of Poker final table since 2009, when he finished seventh in the $40,000 NLH 40th Anniversary event in Las Vegas for $277,939—still his best bracelet-event cash. If you watch him stream, that is the number the chat has been waiting to see update.

Veldhuis recently moved to Costa Rica with his family. PokerNews says he has cashed eight of the 14 completed WSOP Online bracelet events on GGPoker, including a 10th-place finish two weeks earlier in a $1,000 Mystery Bounty PLO (771 entries, $4,522) and 16th in Plante's $2,500 Turbo (719 entries, $12,123). On September 3 he reached the seven-handed PLO final table third in chips. Poker.org, writing the same day, quotes him saying a bracelet "would mean the world" and calling it his first WSOP bracelet final table in 17 years. Taiwan's Shufuu busted seventh ($32,293 with bounties); Dominican-listed Pelmsh88 took sixth ($23,875). Then Veldhuis got it in with a pair of aces against Cursed79, who had flopped top set with a straight-draw redraw. Cursed79 won the pot, claimed the bounty, and Veldhuis was done in fifth.

FunFarm's September 4 recap fills in the board: Cursed79 held king-queen-ten-ten with diamonds in the kings and tens, flopped a set of tens on ten-eight-nine, and Veldhuis's aces never improved. "Oh my god, we were so close. This is tough, guys," he said on stream. Two Brazilians followed him out: Erick Mossinger fourth ($50,023) and Murilo Milhomem third ($63,760). Finland's Kai Lehto (Lasi Paihinen in the lobby), a PLO specialist, then beat Cursed79 heads-up for $147,225 including bounties, a Super Pass, and the bracelet. The runner-up, listed from Cyprus, took $97,263. Daniel Negreanu played the same event and was among the chip leaders at one point, according to FunFarm, before busting before the bubble.

PokerNews says no other 2026 WSOP Online bracelet would be awarded until September 6, in Event #15: the $1,000 Rounder Cup. Players from Asia-Pacific, Eurasia, Europe, and the Americas play separate Day 1s on September 5; the top 10 percent combine at 3:00 p.m. BST on September 6 for a final billed as a battle of the continents. Rolle's seven-figure score is the money headline this week. Veldhuis's fifth is the one a lot of online-regular readers will actually remember, because it is the closest he has come in a generation, and because it did not close.

WCOOP Opens on PokerStars: 121 Events Across 25 Years

According to PokerNews (last updated September 2, 2026; first published August 19), the World Championship of Online Poker returns to PokerStars from September 6 through 30. The 25th edition runs 121 events across High, Medium, and Low buy-in tiers, with buy-ins from $5.50 to $25,000. PokerNews says no fewer than 350 players will earn the right to call themselves world champions. Six Main Events guarantee more than $6.5 million combined, with those tournaments scheduled for September 27 and 28.

The NLHE Main Events on September 27 are the $109 Low ($1.25 million guaranteed), the $1,050 Medium ($2 million), and the $10,300 Championship ($2.5 million). The PLO Main Events follow on September 28: $109 ($100,000), $1,050 ($250,000), and $10,300 ($400,000). Opening day is not a quiet warm-up. September 6 lists Kickoff flights at $5.50 / $55 / $530, a $5,200 NLHE 6-Max Championship with a $400,000 guarantee, and Phase 2 of the Sunday Million 20th Anniversary, a $109 progressive knockout with a $5 million guarantee. Other world-championship labels on the calendar include HORSE on September 7, Razz on September 10, NLHE PKO on September 13, Triple Draw on September 15, PLO8 on September 17, a $215 Women's NLHE Championship on September 20, and $2,100 8-Game on September 24.

Qualification paths start at $0.55 for traditional satellites and $0.75 for WCOOP-themed Spin & Go tournaments. The WCOOP Lucky Dip will award $500,000 in tournament tickets through the festival; Power Path Express will distribute more than $175,000 in ticket bundles and Main Event entries; leaderboards add another $100,000 across Low, Medium, High, and overall Player of the Series races. PokerNews's all-time names for the series still include Benny Glaser, Joao Vieira, Patrick Leonard, and Niklas Astedt; Gilles Simon is listed as the 2025 $10,300 Main Event champion. WSOP Online runs through September 29, so the second half of the month is two online festivals at once. If you only follow one scoreboard, the practical split is Kickoff and the 6-Max Championship this week, Main Events at the end of the month.

ABEMA Invitational Episode 6: Ruiko and Hayato Kitajima Reach Heads-Up

According to ABEMA TIMES on September 4, 2026, episode six of ABEMA POKER INVITATIONAL 2026, which aired August 29, reached heads-up between Ruiko and Hayato Kitajima for the ¥10,000,000 first prize. Last week's August 24–30 roundup left three players after episode five: Ruiko, Kitajima, and Kei Nitta, runner-up in the previous invitational. The two names in this week's heads-up coverage are Ruiko and Kitajima. This piece does not name a champion, because a full winner recap was not available in the sources checked for this run.

ABEMA TIMES describes Ruiko making two pair or better repeatedly in the episode. In the hand it flags, Kitajima raised to 5,000 points with eight-four of hearts; Ruiko called with king-four of diamonds. Both holdings were suited, so each had a flush draw available. For readers who mainly follow English-language coverage, the format is unchanged: eight invited players, a single-table freezeout, Saturday-night broadcast, and no re-entry once you bust. The difference this week is simply that the show has reached the two-player prize.

Taken together, the throughline across all five stories is that online poker posted the week's biggest number, and Jeju posted the week's newest live title. WSOP Online still runs through September 29, WCOOP through September 30. Expect the next roundup to stay on those two calendars as more bracelets and the first WCOOP champions of the year land.