Benny Glaser Claims 17th WCOOP Title With Victory in $1,050 8-Game

Benny “RunGodlike” Glaser has added another title to one of the most remarkable World Championship of Online Poker records, winning WCOOP 44-H: $1,050 8-Game for $21,400. The victory is his 17th WCOOP title, his tenth at High level and his 29th title across PokerStars’ broader Championship of Online Poker events.

It was also a new kind of WCOOP win for Glaser. Despite already having titles in a wide range of poker variants, this was his first WCOOP victory in 8-Game. That makes the latest result more than another number on an already long list. It expands the range of formats in which he has won a WCOOP title to 11.

A first final table of the series becomes another title

Glaser described the tournament as a battle after reaching his first final table of the 2026 series. The timing mattered to him because the win provided a morale boost for the rest of WCOOP. For a player with such a long history in the festival, even a single early result can change the feel of the remaining schedule, especially when it ends with a title rather than merely a deep finish.

The $1,050 8-Game event drew 56 entries and produced a $56,000 prize pool. Glaser’s first-place payout was $21,400. Finland’s Markus “O.Klunssila” Ristola finished second for $13,228, while Sweden’s “ShipitFTW911” took third for $8,177. The seven-player final table also included Anton “WhatIfGod” Bergstrom, “friedrice47”, “moggiii” and Oliver “sk2ll_m0dR” Weis.

The field was not large compared with mass-participation hold’em tournaments, but mixed-game titles are defined by a different kind of difficulty. 8-Game demands competence across several variants rather than mastery of a single structure. That makes the result especially consistent with Glaser’s wider WCOOP record, which stretches across draw games, stud formats, Omaha variants and hold’em.

From a $55 PLO title to 17 WCOOP wins

Glaser’s WCOOP title run began in 2018 with a $55 six-max Pot-Limit Omaha event. That tournament drew 3,312 entries and paid him $18,058 from a $165,600 prize pool. Since then, he has won at least one WCOOP title every year except 2024.

The progression is striking because the wins have not come from repeatedly targeting one favourite format. In 2019 he won a $109 Razz event. In 2020 he captured a $2,100 HORSE title for $43,055. In 2021 he won a $55 six-max NLO8 event, and in 2022 he collected four titles across HORSE, PLO and NLO8 at different buy-in levels.

Then came 2023, the year that turned an already strong record into something exceptional. Glaser won seven WCOOP titles in that series alone. They included Fixed Limit Badugi, No-Limit 2-7 Single Draw, PLO8, No-Limit 5-Card Draw, a $320 six-max NLHE freezeout, a $1,050 six-max NLHE turbo and the $1,050 World Championship of 2-7 Triple Draw.

His largest individual WCOOP title payout came from the 2023 $320 NLHE six-max freezeout. Glaser beat a 1,175-player field and earned $55,706 from a $352,500 prize pool. Five of his other WCOOP victories came in events with larger fields, showing that the biggest cash and the biggest entry count have not always been the same thing in his record.

The 2025 return and the new 2026 chapter

After going without a title in 2024, Glaser returned to the winner’s list in 2025 with WCOOP 81-M: $55 NLHE six-max. That event attracted 2,592 entries and paid him $14,516 from a $129,600 prize pool. The 2026 8-Game victory now extends the sequence again and gives him titles in consecutive editions.

The latest win is also his tenth at WCOOP-H level. His remaining titles are split between five WCOOP-M victories and two WCOOP-L victories. That distribution shows that the record has been built across the festival’s full buy-in structure, from an $11 NLO8 event to $2,100 championship-level tournaments.

Eleven different formats

The breadth of Glaser’s titles may be the most distinctive part of the record. He now has three WCOOP titles in No-Limit Hold’em and three in HORSE. He has two in PLO and two in NLO8. The rest are spread across Razz, Badugi, 2-7 Single Draw, 2-7 Triple Draw, PLO8, 5-Card Draw and now 8-Game.

That list covers community-card games, stud-based formats and draw poker. It also includes mixed structures such as HORSE and 8-Game, where the challenge is not only making good decisions in one variant but changing gears as the game rotation changes. Winning across 11 formats is therefore a different achievement from accumulating the same number of titles in a single discipline.

Glaser’s record also reflects the way WCOOP rewards versatility. The festival offers specialists many chances to play games that receive far less attention in the regular online schedule. A player capable of competing in all of them can enter a much wider set of championship events, and Glaser has repeatedly converted that breadth into titles.

Final table result adds another international line-up

The 2026 8-Game final table included players representing the United Kingdom, Finland, Sweden, Ireland and Austria. Glaser led the payouts with $21,400. Ristola collected $13,228 in second, ShipitFTW911 earned $8,177 in third and Bergstrom took $5,054 in fourth. Friedrice47 finished fifth for $3,124, while moggiii and Weis earned $2,694 and $2,322 respectively.

The payout structure reflects the modest field size, but the event’s importance in Glaser’s career comes from the title count and format rather than the raw prize. His largest WCOOP score is more than double the first prize here, yet the 8-Game win fills a gap in the list of variants he has conquered.

Why another title still matters after so many

Once a player has accumulated a record like Glaser’s, individual victories can look almost routine from the outside. They are not. Every WCOOP event starts from zero, and mixed-game fields tend to contain players who deliberately seek out those formats. A 17th title therefore requires the same basic task as a first one: survive the field and finish with every chip.

There is also a psychological element in tournament series. Glaser said the result was valuable for morale, and that makes sense even for an established champion. A long series produces many near-misses, early exits and schedule decisions. Winning the first final table he reached in 2026 gives him a concrete result to build on rather than chasing momentum later.

A WCOOP record built over nine years

The timeline from 2018 to 2026 shows both consistency and bursts of dominance. Glaser began with one title, added one in each of the next three years, won four in 2022, exploded for seven in 2023, missed out in 2024, returned with one in 2025 and now has another in 2026. The record is not a single hot season stretched by reputation; it is repeated success across nearly a decade.

The buy-ins tell a similar story. Some victories came in low and medium events with large fields, while others came in expensive specialist tournaments with far fewer entries. The skill set required to navigate those environments is different. A 3,312-player $55 PLO tournament tests endurance through a huge field; a $2,100 HORSE event with 45 or 79 entries is more likely to concentrate experienced specialists.

Glaser has now won in both kinds of setting. His title list includes high-volume NLHE and PLO fields, compact draw championships and mixed-game tournaments. That is why the 17-title number and the 11-format number belong together. One measures frequency; the other measures range.

The latest win extends a record rather than finishing the story

The 2026 WCOOP is still a series rather than a single event, and Glaser framed the victory as encouragement for what remains. There is no reason in the source material to predict how many more final tables or titles he will reach this year, but his history explains why every mixed-game event he enters will draw attention.

For now, the confirmed numbers are enough. WCOOP title number 17 came in a $1,050 8-Game event with 56 entries and a $56,000 prize pool. It paid $21,400, became Glaser’s first title in that format, lifted his High-level WCOOP total to ten and expanded his championship-winning range to 11 different variants.

That combination is what makes the result notable. Benny Glaser did not simply add another trophy to a collection. He added a new game to the list of formats in which he has already proved capable of winning at WCOOP level, extending a record that has become as much about versatility as volume.

The 8-Game title also gives a useful way to read the rest of his record. Glaser’s repeated success in HORSE, Omaha and draw variants means the newest win is not an isolated experiment outside his normal schedule. It sits naturally beside a body of results built on switching formats and adapting quickly. In a championship series where many players concentrate on one or two games, that ability expands both opportunity and difficulty: more events are available, but each demands a different technical vocabulary. Seventeen titles across eleven formats is the clearest summary of how consistently he has managed that trade-off.