Poker is an individual sport. Once a year, in Brazil, it is played by state teams, with squad call-ups, a head coach, a points system and a league table. This is the Campeonato Brasileiro de Poker por Equipes (CBPE), the Brazilian Teams Poker Championship, a competition unlike any other on the world calendar, organised annually since 2013 by the Confederação Brasileira de Texas Hold’em (CBTH), the World Poker Federation’s member federation in Brazil, and staged within the Brasilianische Pokerserie (BSOP).
On the evening of Wednesday 22 July, the Golden Hall of the WTC Sheraton in São Paulo came to a standstill to watch two women decide the title of the 12th edition. On one side, Nívea Leite, representing Ceará. On the other, Camila Kons, with the Santa Catarina title on the line.
Kons won the match. Santa Catarina finished the championship on 151 points and claimed the second title in its history, ten years after the first. In a sport whose competitive environment remains predominantly male, and in an edition where the squads were made up of roughly 85 percent men, the national title was decided by two women in front of a packed room.
Final Standings, CBPE 2026
| Position | Zustand | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Santa Catarina | 151 |
| 2 | Goiás | 142 |
| 3 | Minas Gerais | 124 |
| 4 | Paraná | 123 |
| 5 | Mato Grosso | 112 |
| 6 | Rio de Janeiro | 103 |
| 7 | Ceará | 97 |
| 8 | Acre | 91 |
| 9 | Distrito Federal | 86 |
| 10 | Alagoas | 84 |
| 11 | Rondônia | 72 |
| 12 | Roraima | 58 |
Twenty two teams entered the competition and twelve reached the Final Day. Goiás, champions in 2019 and 2024, finished second, nine points back. The bronze was only settled in the closing matches: Minas Gerais secured third place on 124 points, one more than Paraná, which arrived at the final tables needing a win to reach the podium.
“I have never felt the emotions I felt here”
Camila Kons is 35 and has been a professional for more than fifteen years, with most of her career built online. Moments before the deciding match, Kelvin Kerber, her teammate and one of the best poker players in the world, came over and told her quietly: “You have to win for us to be champions.”
She won.
“It was a unique feeling. Poker is an individual sport, everyone works for themselves. I dedicate myself much more to the online game and I will not lie, playing live there, I was outside my comfort zone. I have never felt so much pressure in my life. I was very nervous, but I just wanted to give this title to this team,” she said, visibly moved, shortly after the win.
She then summed up what sets the CBPE apart from everything else she plays on the circuit: “This competition is unique, there is no way to describe it. I have played poker for half my life and I have never felt the emotions I felt here. I am very happy to have done what I needed to do and to bring this title to Santa Catarina.”
How a Team Championship Is Played
Each state calls up six players, and the rules define the composition: the squad must include the reigning state champion and at least one woman.
The competition ran from 20 to 22 July at the Sheraton São Paulo WTC Hotel. The 20th was reserved for the welcome dinner between the delegations and the official draw. The championship itself was played on the 21st and 22nd.
The qualifying phase was played over two rounds, with each team spreading its members across six different poker formats and the match-ups set by a draw broadcast live. Every individual result was converted into points for the state. The twelve highest scoring teams advanced to the Final Day, and the champion was decided on the combined total from both days.
Spreading six players across six formats is a coach’s decision, not a player’s. It requires knowing the repertoire of every player called up, understanding where each one performs best, and accepting that a modest result in a difficult format can be worth more to the team than a win in the game the athlete specialises in. That is why the CBPE rewards technical depth and collective planning.
There is no prize money at the CBPE. What is at stake is the trophy, kept permanently by the winning state, the medals and the flag on the front of the shirt.
Rebuilding in Santa Catarina
The 2026 title crowns a story of renewal.
Champions in 2016, Santa Catarina did not take part in the CBPE between 2018 and 2024. The return was led by Rodrigo Garrido, the only player present in every Santa Catarina squad since the event was created. Called on by the local community and encouraged by CBTH officials, Garrido led the founding of a new Federação Catarinense de Texas Hold’em (FCTH), formalised in early 2025, with headquarters in Jaraguá do Sul and Garrido as its president.
The response was immediate: in 2025, the first year back, Santa Catarina took the bronze medal. In 2026 came the title.
In this edition, Garrido took on the roles of both coach and player. He climbed the podium alongside Camila Kons, Dodô Oliveira, Murilo Felício, Geraldo César, Carlos Rox and Kelvin Kerber.
“I can only thank Garrido for bringing this squad together,” Kons said. “Santa Catarina has so much talent that it could easily field four or five teams. Everyone who came, came to represent and give their best, and that is what we did.”
Poker Organised as a Sport
The CBPE is the only official tournament between state teams in the country, and its existence says a great deal about how far the organisation of Brazilian poker has come.
The CBTH was founded in 2009 as the governing body of competitive poker in Brazil and has been registered as a sporting entity with the Ministry of Sport since 2012. Beyond organising the CBPE, the confederation sanctions the country’s main official competitions and maintains affiliated federations across the states, precisely the structure that allowed Santa Catarina to rebuild its representation and return to competition.
The championship is held with the support of the World Poker Federation and of the Brazilian Series of Poker, which hosted the CBPE during the opening days of BSOP Winter at the WTC Sheraton. The 2026 edition also counted on H2 BET, JayPi and Flush Tour among its sponsors and partners.
Alberoni “Bill” Castro, president of the CBTH and head of Sports on the World Poker Federation Management Board, commented on the 2026 edition: “The CBPE shows the best of what poker has to offer: technique, strategy and passion, along with the collective spirit of conventional sports. Seeing the national title decided by two women, in front of a packed room, says a lot about the moment and about the future of our sport in Brazil.”
It is this combination that underpins the international recognition of poker as a mind sport by the International Mind Sports Association, alongside chess, bridge, draughts and go. Squads called up under a regulation, match-ups drawn in an open broadcast, results audited into points and a title that pays nothing beyond the right to lift the trophy: the CBPE is the case for competitive poker being made in practice, over three days of competition.
Roll of Champions
| Jahr | Champion |
|---|---|
| 2013 | Rio de Janeiro |
| 2014 | Amazonas |
| 2015 | Rondônia and Acre |
| 2016 | Santa Catarina |
| 2017 | São Paulo |
| 2018 | Paraná |
| 2019 | Goiás |
| 2022 | Paraná |
| 2023 | Rio de Janeiro |
| 2024 | Goiás |
| 2025 | Rio de Janeiro |
| 2026 | Santa Catarina |
The 2020 and 2021 editions were not held because of the Covid 19 pandemic.
The World Poker Federation congratulates the CBTH on the delivery of the 12th Brazilian Teams Poker Championship and Santa Catarina on winning the title.
