Patrick “pads1161” Leonard has spent WCOOP 2026 collecting titles, final tables and another reminder that even the best online tournament players can still run into a door at heads-up.
The British pro came within one opponent of winning his third title of this year’s World Championship of Online Poker on Wednesday, finishing runner-up to Mexico’s “Manolo Poppe” in the $530 Wednesday Surprise Mystery Bounty. Leonard earned roughly $9,000, while the winner collected $18,947 including bounties and secured a second career WCOOP title.
For Leonard, the near miss matters because it would have been career WCOOP title number 16. That would have moved him to within one of Benny Glaser, whose record currently stands at 17 after another mixed-game victory earlier in this series.
Leonard Comes One Match Short of WCOOP Title 16
The $530 Wednesday Surprise Mystery Bounty produced a final table containing several familiar online names. Leonard and Manolo Poppe survived a lineup that also included German high-stakes regular “Sintoras” and Brazil’s Pedro “PaDiLhA SP” Padilha before meeting heads-up for the title.
Manolo Poppe closed it out and banked $18,947 in total, with most of that return coming from mystery bounties. Leonard’s runner-up finish added another deep run to a series in which he has already won twice, but the more interesting number is the one that stayed unchanged: 15 career WCOOP titles.
That leaves Leonard two behind Glaser rather than one. In a normal online series that distinction might feel like leaderboard trivia, but WCOOP’s all-time title race has become unusually crowded with elite players capable of adding trophies in bunches.
WCOOP’s Record Race Is Getting Crowded
Glaser stretched the record to 17 earlier in WCOOP 2026 by winning the $1,050 8-Game High event. Poker Type covered Glaser’s record-extending victory, which also underlined why catching him is difficult: his titles are spread across a ridiculous range of formats rather than one preferred game.
Niklas “Lena900” Astedt is another serious threat. The Swedish star won two events on consecutive nights earlier this month to reach 14 career titles, a run Poker Type followed in its report on Astedt’s WCOOP double. Renan “Internett93o” Bruschi has since gone even hotter in the current series, becoming the first player to win four WCOOP events in 2026 and moving to 13 overall.
Leonard therefore sits in an awkwardly impressive spot. Fifteen WCOOP titles would make almost anyone else the obvious headline act, yet the current record chase has Glaser at 17, Leonard close behind and several prolific champions still registering events with nearly a week of the festival remaining.
Two Titles Already Make This Another Big WCOOP
The runner-up finish should not obscure what Leonard has already done this month. He has won two WCOOP 2026 titles and was trying to complete a hat trick when Manolo Poppe stopped him heads-up.
That volume of deep runs is hardly new for Leonard. He has been one of PokerStars’ most persistent championship grinders for years, combining No-Limit Hold’em results with success in mixed games and repeatedly challenging the overall series leaderboards. His online résumé is built less around one giant score than around turning up in the final stages of major festivals again and again.
Wednesday’s session also showed how difficult that repeat success is. PokerStars Ambassador Sebastian “peace&loove” Huber reached two final tables on the same day without winning either, finishing fifth in the 722-entry $55 PLO PKO and third in the 336-entry $215 NLHE Turbo PKO. Germany’s “NT4T_CrP” won the latter for $13,475 in total.
Elsewhere, Ukraine’s “MuUkR” and Lithuania’s “D1sable” both became two-time champions of WCOOP 2026. MuUkR beat Juan “Malaka$tyle” Pardo heads-up in an 81-entry $1,050 Turbo PKO for $26,229 including bounties, while D1sable won an 874-entry $11 HORSE event for $1,426.
Six Days Remain for Another Shot
WCOOP 2026 continues through September 30, so Leonard has not exactly run out of chances. The biggest tournaments are still to come too, with the Main Event programme beginning on September 27 and the schedule continuing across Hold’em, Omaha and mixed games.
The record chase is now part of the entertainment. Glaser owns the number everyone is trying to catch, Leonard keeps getting close enough to make it uncomfortable, and Astedt and Bruschi have both demonstrated during this series that multiple titles can arrive very quickly.
Leonard missed number 16 by one opponent on Wednesday. Given the way his September has gone, nobody should be surprised if he is back at another final table before WCOOP shuts the lobby on September 30.
