Kyle Grupp Wins WSOP Circuit Turning Stone Main Event

The 2026 World Series of Poker Circuit Turning Stone $1,700 no-limit hold’em main event drew a field of 996 entries to Verona, New York. Kyle Grupp secured his first WSOPC gold ring and $246,362 as the last player standing. This was Grupp’s largest live payday yet, besting the $165,000 that came with a 54th-place showing in the 2025 WSOP main event in Las Vegas. With this triumph in his home state, he now has more than $836,000 in lifetime cashes.

Before this breakout win, Grupp had made two previous WSOPC main event final tables. He finished fourth in this same event back in 2023, and sixth in the WSOP International Circuit Montreal in 2025. This latest victory came with 912 Card Player Player of the Year points. It was his third POY-qualified final table of the year. He now sits just outside of the top 350 in the 2026 POY race standings presented by CoinPoker.

The last day began with seven players remaining and Joel Cattelane in the lead. Grupp was in the middle of the pack to start. The top 114 cashed, with notables like David Stefanski (58th), Vinny Pahuja (24th), Mukul Pahuja (22nd), and Hamid Izadi (8th) running deep. Cathy Schenone (7th – $32,160) was the first to fall in the final session, with her pocket sixes unable to overcome the pocket nines of Greg Ostrander. Tina Panichi soon followed after her A♣Q♣ ran into the K♠K♦ of Grupp. Panichi flopped a gutshot to go with her overcard, and then improved to an open-ended straight draw on the turn. The river was a blank, though, and she settled for $43,050 as the sixth-place finisher. Cattelane halted Grupp’s momentum during five-handed play, picking off a bluff to grow his stack to roughly half of the total chips in play. Ostrander got the last of his stack in with A♠Q♥ leading Daniel Wagner’s 9♥8♥, but the flop brought two eights to give Wagner trips and a big lead in the hand. He held from there to send Ostrander packing in fifth place ($58,647). The bracelet winner from Rochester now has more than $1.3 million in lifetime earnings after this latest deep run. Despite scoring that knockout, Wagner was ultimately the next to fall. He made his last stand with A♥Q♠ racing against the 8♥8♣ of Cattelane. Neither player improved on a king-high runout and Wagner was bounced in fourth place ($81,282).