Matt Grapenthien is a rare breed in the modern poker landscape: a stud specialist. While he has found success in many mixed-game poker tournaments over the years, four of the Chicago native’s top five scores have come in stud events.
Grapenthien’s very first tournament cash came in 2004, when he finished third in the stud championship at the L.A. Poker Classic. A few years later, he recorded his first cash at the WSOP in the $1,500 stud, placing 15th.
His first bracelet win came in the 2014 WSOP $10,000 stud championship. A dozen years after that breakthrough victory, Grapenthien recorded an even bigger triumph as the champion of the 2026 WSOP $10,000 stud eight-or-better championship. He beat out 190 entries in the split-pot affair to earn a career-high score of $415,648 and his second gold bracelet.
The longtime stud grinder felt comfortable down the stretch, thanks in large part to his experience playing the game against just one or two opponents.
“I spent a very long time online playing short-handed and heads-up stud. For many years, when I started playing poker, I would sit and wait for people to play me one-on-one,” Grapenthien told PokerNews after closing out this win. “I have more experience than almost anybody heads-up in these games.”
This win increased Grapenthien’s career tournament earnings to more than $1.5 million. It also came with 840 Card Player Player of the Year points. This was his second POY-qualified score of the year. He now sits just outside the top 600 in the race standings presented by CoinPoker. He also secured 416 PokerGO Tour points, enough to climb to 71st place on that high-stakes-centric leaderboard.
Stud-8 Studs
The top 29 finishers earned a share of the $1,767,000 prize pool in this event, with the bubble bursting on day 2. Notables like Michael Moncek (25th), Phil Ivey (22nd), Bryce Yockey (20th), Calvin Anderson (17th), Andrey Zhigalov (16th), and Ryutaro Suzuki (14th) all hit the rail before the final baker’s dozen bagged up ahead of day 3.
Two-time bracelet winner Maxx Coleman was the overnight leader, with Grapenthien in the middle of the pack. Bracelet winners Bradley Jansen (13th), Paul Volpe (11th), and Matthew Vengrin (9th) all fell ahead of the official final table. Grapenthien then busted recent $10,000 triple draw deuce-to-seven championship winner Koji Fujimoto (8th – $43,226) to narrow the field to seven.
Mark Rubbathan (7th – $55,282) and two-time bracelet winner Chris Brewer (6th – $72,587) were both sent packing by the UK’s Jack Germaine.
Caitlin Comeskey, fresh off a fourth-place finish in the ladies event, also fell at Germaine’s hands. She lost a big pot earlier on day 3 with a full house against a straight flush for Grapenthien, but managed to bounce back from that brutal loss to log another top-five finish. Germaine made a heart flush in his first five cards to end Comeskey’s latest run in fifth place ($97,785).
Four To One
Walter Chambers bowed out in fourth place ($135,065) when his eights and sixes were bested by a rivered nine-high straight for Coleman. Despite scoring that knockout, Coleman was ultimately the next to be eliminated. He got his last few chips in after the deal with split kings. Grapenthien had A-Q high and two spades at that point, but paired his queen on fourth street and found a third on sixth. Coleman ended up with the one pair he started with, while Grapenthien’s trips earned him the pot. Coleman earned $191,165 as the third-place finisher. This was his third final-table finish of the series, having also placed fifth in a $1,500 pot-limit Omaha event and fourth in the $50,000 Poker Players Championship.
Grapenthien took a slight chip lead into heads-up play with Germaine. After falling behind briefly, he surged back in front and then began to pull away.
A huge pot won with quad deuces saw Grapenthien’s chip advantage grow to more than 8:1. Not long after that, Germaine was all-in on fifth street with (5♥5♣)Q♦6♠9♣ against (A♦Q♣)3♦8♥J♣. Sixth street gave Germaine 5♦ for trip fives and Grapenthien the 8♦ for a pair of eights. The 4♦ river for Germaine changed nothing. The 8♣ on the end saw Grapenthien hit running eights down the stretch for trip eights and the scoop.
Germaine was awarded $277,087 as the runner-up. This was his largest live tournament score yet.
Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Payout | POY Points | PGT Points |
| 1 | Matt Grapenthien | $415,648 | 840 | 416 |
| 2 | Jack Germaine | $277,087 | 700 | 277 |
| 3 | Maxx Coleman | $191,165 | 560 | 191 |
| 4 | Walter Chambers | $135,065 | 420 | 135 |
| 5 | Caitlin Comeskey | $97,785 | 350 | 98 |
| 6 | Chris Brewer | $72,587 | 280 | 73 |
| 7 | Mark Rubbathan | $55,282 | 210 | 55 |
| 8 | Koji Fujimoto | $43,226 | 140 | 43 |
Photo credit: WSOP / Lennart Hennig.
