Nick Petrangelo

Nick Petrangelo is widely regarded as one of the most disciplined and analytically-minded high-stakes tournament players of his generation. Playing online for years under the alias “caecilius,” Petrangelo built his reputation the hard way,  grinding up from small-stakes online tournaments into one of the most feared names at the world’s biggest buy-in final tables.

The Massachusetts-born pro has become a fixture in the ultra-high-roller scene, holding two World Series of Poker (WSOP) gold bracelets and a long list of seven-figure scores across the WPT, WCOOP, Triton Poker Series, Aussie Millions, and PokerGO Tour. As of July 2026, Petrangelo has more than $41.9 million in verified live tournament earnings according to The Hendon Mob, placing him among poker’s all-time money leaders and making him the highest-earning player from Massachusetts. Beyond the felt, he has also become a respected strategy coach, co-founding GTO LAB and creating tournament training content for Upswing Poker. 

Nick Petrangelo Quick Facts

Category	Information
Full Name	Nicholas Vincent Petrangelo
Poker Nickname / Alias	“caecilius” (PokerStars), “canofcorn22” (Full Tilt)
Date of Birth	January 2, 1987
Birthplace	Feeding Hills, Massachusetts
Nationality	American
Residence	Las Vegas, Nevada
Profession	Professional Poker Player, Strategy Coach
WSOP Bracelets	2
Total Live Tournament Earnings	$41.9M+
Coaching Ventures	GTO LAB (co-founder), Upswing Poker (former lead tournament coach)

Nick Petrangelo Early Life & Poker Beginnings

Before becoming a fixture at the world’s toughest high-roller final tables, Petrangelo grew up in Feeding Hills, Massachusetts, where he was an avid amateur golf and hockey player. He went on to attend Skidmore College in New York, graduating with a degree in Economics and Finance, a background that would later show up clearly in his methodical, math-driven approach to tournament strategy.

Petrangelo’s breakthrough moment came early and small: a third-place finish in a $3 rebuy tournament on PokerStars netted him $1,700, enough to convince him to leave a golf course job behind and pursue poker seriously. His early online results built quickly under the alias “caecilius,” and by December 2012 he had topped the PocketFives world rankings — the industry benchmark for the most successful online tournament grinders of that year.

His transition to live tournaments accelerated after he met fellow Massachusetts native and professional player Jonathan Jaffe, who mentored him, backed him in smaller buy-in events, and coached his mechanics over several years, a relationship Petrangelo has credited directly with sharpening his live game.

Nick Petrangelo WSOP Bracelet Wins

Petrangelo has won two WSOP gold bracelets, both in No-Limit Hold’em.

Year	Tournament	Prize
2015	$3,000 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout	$201,812
2018	$100,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller	$2,910,227

His 2018 win remains the biggest live score of his career, he defeated fellow American pro Elio Fox heads-up to claim it, and the same summer, added a third-place finish in the $50,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller for $720,103, proving the run was no fluke.

High Roller & Major Tour Success

Beyond the WSOP, Petrangelo has built one of the most consistent high-roller resumes in modern poker.

Year	Event	Result
2015	WPT Alpha8 $100,000 High Roller (WPT Five Diamond)	Runner-up, $1,015,335
2017	Aussie Millions AU$100,000 Challenge	Winner, AU$882,000
2017	WCOOP $25,000 High Roller (PokerStars)	Winner, $624,677
2021	Aria $200,000 High Roller	Winner, $1,468,800
2021	Poker Masters $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em	Winner, $680,000
2022	PokerGO Stairway to Millions $100,000	Winner, $1,026,000
2022	Triton Poker Cyprus $100,000 No-Limit Hold’em	4th place, $1,250,000
2023	WSOP $50,000 High Roller	2nd place, $750,000
2024	Triton Poker Series Vietnam $100,000 Main Event	3rd place, $1,150,000

That spread — winning outright on some of the biggest stages in poker while consistently final-tabling the Triton Super High Roller circuit against the toughest fields in the world — is a big part of why Petrangelo is respected as much for consistency as for raw firepower.

Real-Time Poker Earnings (2026)

Live earnings databases don’t fully agree on Petrangelo’s exact total, which is worth being upfront about rather than picking one number silently:

• Hendon Mob (live tournaments only): $41,940,923 across 213 cashes, with his most recent recorded cash on May 17, 2026 ($92,000). Best live cash on record: $2,910,227.
• Card Player’s database (live + verified online real-name results): $43,316,564 across 210 recorded cashes and 22 tournament wins. This broader figure breaks down as $6,972,034 from 36 WSOP cashes (2 bracelets, 8 final tables), $624,986 from 7 WPT cashes (1 championship), and $216,323 from 7 EPT cashes.
• 2026 season standing: Card Player’s live 2026 Player of the Year points tracker currently places him at rank #414 for the season,  modest by his own standards, reflecting a comparatively quieter year-to-date rather than a marquee 2026 score.

Either total keeps him firmly among:

• The top 15–25 all-time money leaders in poker history (exact rank varies slightly by tracking database)
• The highest-earning poker player from Massachusetts
• A consistent presence on the Triton Poker Series and other elite international high-roller circuits

As of this writing, his latest recorded cash (May 17, 2026) predates the start of the 2026 WSOP summer series (May 26 – July 15). No 2026 WSOP result for Petrangelo had shown up in tournament databases as of mid-July, so it’s unclear whether he played this year’s series at all,  worth checking back once the summer’s full results are finalized.

Nick Petrangelo Biggest Poker Cashes

Event	Finish	Prize
2018 WSOP $100,000 High Roller	Winner	$2,910,227
2021 Aria $200,000 High Roller	Winner	$1,468,800
2022 Triton Poker Cyprus $100,000 NLH	4th	$1,250,000
2024 Triton Poker Series Vietnam $100,000 Main Event	3rd	$1,150,000
2022 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $100,000 High Roller	3rd	$1,085,000
2022 PokerGO Stairway to Millions $100,000	Winner	$1,026,000
2015 WPT Alpha8 $100,000 High Roller	Runner-up	$1,015,335

The 2018 WSOP $100,000 High Roller remains the largest single payout of his career to date.

Nick Petrangelo’s Poker Strategy

Analytical, Solver-Driven Approach

Petrangelo’s economics and finance background shows up directly in how he studies the game. He’s known for treating tournament strategy as a genuinely quantitative discipline, building deep personal libraries of solver output and preflop reference charts rather than relying purely on feel.

ICM Specialist

One of Petrangelo’s most recognized strengths is Independent Chip Model (ICM) mastery — understanding how chip stacks translate to real tournament equity near pay jumps and final tables. He’s built entire coaching courses specifically around this skill, reflecting how central it is to his own game.

Volume-to-Live Transition

Like many top modern pros, Petrangelo’s foundation was built through massive online volume rather than years of live-only experience. That online discipline — quick decision-making, pattern recognition across huge sample sizes — has translated into a live game known for composure and consistency rather than flash.

Deep-Stack Postflop Precision

His coaching content places heavy emphasis on postflop play out of position and blind-vs-blind 3-bet pots — technical areas that separate elite high-roller regulars from the rest of the field, and areas he’s built structured teaching material around.

Online Poker and Coaching Career

Petrangelo established himself as one of online poker’s elite tournament grinders long before becoming one of the world’s premier live high-stakes professionals, playing under “caecilius” on PokerStars and “canofcorn22” on Full Tilt Poker. His online résumé includes the 2017 WCOOP $25K High Roller title and a Sunday Million win worth roughly $209,000, on top of topping the PocketFives global rankings in 2012.

That online pedigree eventually turned into a coaching career that’s still active on two fronts today. Petrangelo joined Upswing Poker, the training site founded by Doug Polk, in 2018, and remains listed as the site’s lead tournament and live cash game coach, his flagship course, Winning Poker Tournaments, is joined by Smash Live Cash Games and a companion course, ICM Unmasked, focused entirely on tournament equity decisions. Separately, he’s also a co-founder of GTO LAB alongside fellow pro Daniel Dvoress, where he helped design a postflop chip-EV and ICM training tool and created Tournament Savagery, a structured ICM masterclass, plus a 26-Day Training Plan aimed at building professional-level tournament skills in a condensed timeframe.

Notable Poker Moments

Petrangelo’s first WSOP bracelet run in 2015 included one of the more dramatic comebacks of his career,  he held a commanding chip lead heads-up against Jason Les before a rough beat with pocket kings flipped the momentum, only for Petrangelo to fight back and close out the win. Three years later, his 2018 High Roller title came via a heads-up victory over Elio Fox, cementing his second bracelet and his career-high score.

Away from tournament poker, Petrangelo appeared in the first revived season of PokerGO’s High Stakes Poker cash game show in December 2020, sitting in a $400/$800 No-Limit Hold’em session alongside Tom Dwan, Bryn Kenney, and Rick Solomon,  a rare glimpse of his game outside a tournament structure.

Personal Life

Petrangelo is known within the poker community as an unusually private figure relative to many of his high-roller peers. He maintains a technically active X/Twitter account, but posts on it rarely, most of what’s publicly known about his background comes from a handful of interviews given earlier in his career rather than ongoing social media activity. What is well documented is his academic background (Economics and Finance at Skidmore College), his Massachusetts roots, and the mentorship of Jonathan Jaffe early in his career.

Unlike some peers, Petrangelo’s estimated net worth isn’t something reliably documented publicly the way his tournament earnings are, his verified live tournament earnings remain the clearest public benchmark of his career success.

Why Nick Petrangelo Is Among the Best

Nick Petrangelo’s poker legacy rests on:

• Two WSOP gold bracelets across very different formats (a shootout and a $100K High Roller)
• Consistent final tables on the Triton Super High Roller circuit, poker’s toughest modern proving ground
• A rare combination of online-honed volume skills and live high-stakes composure
• Recognized expertise in ICM and tournament equity, formalized into two separate coaching platforms
• More than $41.9 million in verified live tournament earnings and one of the most consistent records in high-stakes tournament poker. 

Very few players manage to sustain elite-level results across both the online-boom generation and today’s live Triton-dominated high-roller era. Petrangelo has done exactly that.

Final Thoughts

Nick Petrangelo’s career reflects something increasingly rare in modern poker: quiet, sustained excellence built on genuine analytical rigor rather than public persona. From his first small online cash in 2008 to two WSOP bracelets and a spot among poker’s all-time top earners, his trajectory has been defined by consistency rather than headline-chasing.

Even in 2026, with a career earnings mark north of $41.9 million and a recorded cash as recently as May, Petrangelo remains an active threat at the highest levels of live tournament poker,  while helping shape the next generation of tournament players through GTO LAB and his earlier work with Upswing Poker.

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