Justin Arnwine Wins 2026 Maryland State Poker Championship Main Event

• Justin Arnwine, a local from Upper Marlboro, Maryland, won the 2026 Maryland State Poker Championship $1,700 Main Event for $86,167 and the trophy.
• The Main Event drew 380 entries and built a $570,000 prize pool, clearing its $500,000 guarantee.
• Arnwine started the six-handed final table second in chips behind Maryland native Daniel Iachan, the overnight leader who was still chasing his first live title.

Home-state players circled this one on the calendar, and it was a home-state player who took it down. Arnwine plays the American live circuit relentlessly, and the trophy cabinet shows it. PokerNews credits him with more than 150 titles and around $2.1 million in live earnings, and The Hendon Mob logs him at close to $2 million across more than 500 recorded cashes.

You have probably already spotted him. Arnwine is the one at the table in full Hello Kitty gear, a look that has become his calling card at Live! Casino Maryland and beyond. A festival Main Event like this one rewards patience and hand selection over a long haul, the same fundamentals we break down in our guide to the best poker hands for multi-table tournaments.

Six players came back for the final day, and Arnwine was not the favorite on paper. Here is how the chip counts stacked up when play resumed:

• Daniel Iachan – 5,140,000 (chip leader)
• Justin Arnwine – 2,990,000
• Kevin Grabel – 2,620,000
• Valentin Lita – 2,470,000
• Aaron Pinson – 1,090,000
• Robert Salera – 895,000

Nobody at the table was short on pedigree. Pinson brought a WPT final table from right here at Live! Casino Maryland in 2018, plus a runner-up finish in the WPT Prime Championship in Las Vegas in 2023.

The player with the most to prove was the one out front. Daniel Iachan, a Maryland native, took a commanding lead into the final table with around $630,000 in live career earnings to his name.

Part of that résumé is genuinely impressive: back-to-back top-100 runs in the last two editions of the WSOP Main Event. What he did not have was a live tournament win, and despite holding the chip lead into the final six, he could not close this one out. Arnwine did.

This title looked like it might slip away before the final table even formed. With the field down to the last nine, Arnwine got his 980,000 in with ace-queen on a queen-high board and ran straight into the turned two pair of Boris Kravets.

One card from the rail, Arnwine spiked an ace on the river for aces and queens, and the double-up flipped his night around. Kravets never recovered and busted in eighth ($14,000). Nicholas Verderamo went out seventh ($18,000) to end Day 2, with Neal Liptak the first finalist to fall in ninth ($11,100). Spotting the right moment to get chips in, and surviving when you do, is the whole game in the late stages.

The advertised top prize was $111,000, though Arnwine’s recorded $86,167 payday suggests the finalists agreed to a deal. Arnwine took the money, the trophy, and the title that carries the state’s name.

State championships do not hand out seven-figure scores, and that is exactly why they matter to the players grinding them. This is homegrown poker, a $1,700 buy-in that a Maryland regular can win in his own backyard against a 380-strong field. For Arnwine, it is another trophy on a very long shelf.

For everyone who came up short, from Iachan chasing that elusive first title to the rest of the final six, it is a reminder that the next stop on the American circuit is never far away. See you at the felt.