Espen Jorstad Wins Third Career WCOOP Title in $1,050 PKO Warm-Up

Poker chips and trophy representing Espen Jorstad's 2026 WCOOP PKO Warm-Up win

By Sandra Gaweda · September 8, 2026 · 3 min read

Espen Jorstad won WCOOP 02-H: $1,050 PKO Warm-Up on PokerStars for his third career WCOOP title, banking $33,250 in total.
Playing as “SamSolverel,” the 2022 WSOP Main Event champion came back from a four-to-one chip deficit to beat Finland’s “realsuhisjii” heads-up.
The win landed one day into the 2026 WCOOP, the series’ 25th edition, a 121-event festival running September 6–30.
WCOOP plays out on the global PokerStars platform, which US-based players cannot access from inside the country.

Espen Jorstad is back in a WCOOP winner’s circle. On September 7, 2026, the Norwegian pro took down WCOOP 02-H: $1,050 PKO Warm-Up on PokerStars for the third World Championship of Online Poker title of his career. Playing under the alias “SamSolverel,” Jorstad outlasted a 154-player field to collect $14,359 for the win plus $18,891 in bounties, for a total haul of $33,250. The victory arrived just one day into the 2026 series and set the tone for a player who has built his reputation by turning up when the fields are largest and the pressure is highest.

How Jorstad Won the Warm-Up

The 154 entries created a $154,000 base prize pool before bounties. Jorstad closed it out after a heads-up battle against Finnish opponent “realsuhisjii” that looked, for a while, like a losing cause. He came to the final duel staring at a four-to-one chip deficit, the kind of hole that ends most tournaments quickly.

It did not end this one. The gap disappeared in a single hand when Jorstad’s king-queen ran into his opponent’s king-jack. The hand went to the river, where Jorstad completed a straight to score a massive double-up and seize the chip lead. From there he kept the pressure on. On the final hand he three-bet preflop with ace-king, fired all three streets, and moved all in after rivering two pair. His opponent called off for his tournament life with a turned two pair of king-seven that had already been outdrawn, and the title was Jorstad’s.

Runner-up “realsuhisjii” banked $22,281 in total. Elsewhere at the final table, Austria’s Leonard “Grozzorg” Maue finished sixth for a combined $5,759, while Brazil’s Joao “Jbiancolini” Biancolini took eighth for $4,727 — a result that kept Brazil’s 2026 series tally at five wins.

A Third WCOOP Title, Years Apart

This is not new territory for Jorstad, even if the wins have come in waves. His first WCOOP title came in 2023 in the $3,150 PKO Sunday Warm-Up, a 132-runner event worth $122,371. He followed it up in 2024 by winning the $1,050 NLHE Turbo out of a 161-player field for $32,459. A blank 2025 came in between before this latest triumph, meaning his three titles now span 2023, 2024, and 2026. Longtime railbirds may not immediately connect the dots, because his first two victories were won under a different online name, “Hymn2Ninkasi.”

Still Best Known for the Big One

For all his online pedigree, Jorstad remains most famous for a live result. He is the reigning story of the 2022 World Series of Poker Main Event, where he outlasted a field of 8,663 entries in the $10,000 buy-in World Championship to win $10,000,000 and become the first Norwegian to claim poker’s biggest title. That win put him on a very short list of players who have conquered the game’s largest live stage, and it is the achievement most fans still mention first.

The WCOOP itself carries similar weight in the online world. PokerStars’ flagship series has grown into one of the sport’s marquee festivals over more than two decades, a stretch that has seen it post record entries and prize pools at its milestones. The 2026 edition is the 25th and features 121 events running September 6 through September 30, so Jorstad’s early title leaves him three weeks to add to the tally.

The GTO Wizard Connection

Jorstad’s win also doubles as a headline for the training platform he represents. He became the first GTO Wizard ambassador back in 2023 and has stayed with the solver brand since. The roster has grown around him to include Dan “Jungleman” Cates, who signed in 2025, along with Samuel Mullur, Shiina Okamoto, and poker content creator Joey Ingram. For a player who built his edge on tournament know-how, a deep run in a study-heavy PKO format is exactly the kind of result the platform likes to point to.

Can US Players Play in WCOOP?

For US-based players, there is an important caveat: WCOOP runs on the global PokerStars (.com) platform, which is not available to players located inside the United States. That makes this a series American poker fans follow rather than one they can enter from home. Even so, results like Jorstad’s are worth tracking, because WCOOP remains a benchmark for online tournament poker and a preview of the names and formats that shape the wider game. If you want to play regulated online poker in the US, stick to licensed sites operating in your state, and enjoy WCOOP as the spectacle it is.

Sandra is a content writer and digital creative with 10+ years of experience across Web3, crypto, NFTs, iGaming, wellness, and media. She creates blog content, email campaigns, and brand copy for companies ranging from early-stage ventures to established platforms. She currently writes for Legal US Poker Sites, continuing to grow her presence in the digital content space.