An Argentine holding more than a third of the chips, an experienced Uruguayan and a local playing at home. The BSOP Floripa 2026 Main Event wrapped up Day 2 on Monday with its final table set: Ulises Acosta leads with 12,705,000 chips, more than double the second-place stack, and on Tuesday from 3 pm Brasília time eight players will fight for R$500,000 on a live stream with hole cards shown.
The facts: 892 entries, a R$2.77 million prize pool and a leader who multiplied his stack by 24
The R$4,000 tournament drew 892 entries, built a prize pool of R$2,769,300 and sent 146 players into Day 2, as we reported yesterday. Monday's session burst the money bubble with Marcelo Sabedot and ended with a double elimination in 9th place, so the table starts eight-handed with a guaranteed minimum of R$50,000.
Acosta had bagged 531,000 at the end of Day 1B; in a single session he multiplied that by 24 and arrives with 127 big blinds, 35.6% of all the chips in play. Behind him sit Gustavo Reinert Nicoletti (5,270,000, 53 big blinds), Charles Poltronieri (4,400,000, 44), Florianópolis native Kaio Camargo (3,505,000, 35), Tiago De Boni Dutra (3,275,000, 33), Anis Homaidan Neto (2,355,000, 24), Uruguay's Federico Sturzenegger (2,300,000, 23) and Michel Balazs (1,940,000, 19). Homaidan had been the overall chip leader after the Day 1 flights and is now one of the short stacks. Play resumes at level 26, blinds 50,000/100,000 with a 100,000 big blind ante; the average stack is 4,460,000, roughly 45 big blinds.
The payouts: R$500,000 for the champion, R$315,000 for second, R$215,000 for third, R$160,000 for fourth, then R$119,000, R$88,000, R$66,000 and R$50,000. Among the Spanish-speaking players who cashed short of the final table, Gonzalo Díaz finished 13th (R$30,800) and Bolivia's Miguel Ángel Leyva, the Day 1A leader, came 22nd (R$16,700).
Why it matters: a final table runs on two different clocks
The first clock is the chips. With a big blind ante, the preflop pot already holds 250,000 before anyone acts: small blind, big blind and ante. A raise to 220,000 risks 2.2 big blinds to win 2.5 and only needs to work 47% of the time. For Acosta, on 127 big blinds, stealing and bluffing against stacks that cannot call without committing themselves is almost free; for Balazs and Sturzenegger, on 19 and 23 big blinds, this is already push or fold territory: min-raising and folding to a re-raise throws away more than 10% of the stack every time. If you have not yet worked out how the big blind ante changes the math, this table is the practical lesson.
The second clock is the money. From 8th to 7th the gap is R$16,000; from 4th to 3rd, R$55,000; from runner-up to champion, R$185,000. That slope is what ICM measures, the model that converts chips into real value according to the payouts, and it explains why the leader can afford to open close to 40% of hands while a medium stack like Poltronieri should be folding middle pairs to a short stack's shove. It is the same logic as the bubble, multiplied by seven pay jumps.
The lesson for your next tournament: before every hand at a final table, check your stack in big blinds and your spot on the payout ladder, not just your cards. Many of these players sharpened their game in Brazil's club-app ecosystem; if you are curious how it works, start with how Suprema Poker works. And if this leaves you wanting more live poker at this level, the BSOP Millions closes the season in November with dates already announced. Who do you think takes the title this afternoon? Drop your pick in the community and we will talk it through as the table plays out.