2026 WSOPC Calgary Jan – Event #12: $2,200 NLH Main Event

The opening flight to the Main Event nearly went overtime, as they got into a very long bubble. With the clock paused with one elimination to go, they played through most of Level 17 before the bubble finally burst with just over a minute to play in Level 17.

Oleksii Mezhenkov bagged the big stack from Day 1a with 829k, the only player with 800k or more. Aleksei Ponomarevbagged 777k for second, then there was a big cliff down to 3rd-place Sami Al-Serri at 486k. Chris Potter and Raymond Lamy round out the top five counts.

There are a total of 38 bags waiting from Day 1a, with three players cashing out today for $4,470.

Day 1a Cahsers

Place	Player	Prize
39	Gaetano Buda	$4,470
40	Edward Sorensen	$4,470
41	Trent Sapach	$4,470

Day 1a Stacks

The 1a prizes are in, and players cashing out from today’s flight will pocket $4,470. There are no payjumps in the prizes tonight, as the first payjump would come at 27th place, and the bags will come out with 28 remaining, at the latest.

They are down to 70 players remaining to start Level 14, and including this level, there are 4 levels to play in the scheduled day. The field must play down to at least 41 tonight, and they won’t play any farther than 28 left, but it looks like a safe bet that they’ll be in the money before the end of Level 17, which is about 3 hours away.

Entries for Day 1a are now closed, and the final tally was 271. While that doesn’t hit the record for entries in a Day 1a of the Main Event here, the extra juice in the buy-in this year has made it the biggest 1a prize pool ever for the big game, and if the numbers hold through the expected larger 1b/c, then this game will likely end up somewhere between $2.5 & $3 million.

So far, the record prize pool for a full Main Event looks to be about $2.2 million, and given the state of Day 1a, it looks like that will be surpassed pretty easily by Saturday evening.

Note that in my start-of-day post, I said this game will play down to 5% of the field. In fact, they’ll bag up when they get to 10% for this game, but no matter what, this flight must at least play down to 15% of the field (41 players) before the bags come out. At least 28 players will be finding a bag from today’s flight.

Chris Potter looks to be leading with entries closed. He has 361k and leads two other players in the 300k range. Below is a look at the top ten stacks from the final break of entries.

Level 12 has just ended, and the players are on the final break with registration open. When they sit down for Level 13, the 1a field will be set.

There are about 45 minutes left to get into Day 1a, with the action now in Level 12. The current field is at 263, for prizes of more than $515k, and with the current numbers, it looks like 40 paid spots will be available tonight, with at least 14 bags moving to Day 2, but those numbers could change depending on the entries over the next 45 minutes.

Level 11 is about half complete, and the field is just shy of 260 entries. That pushes the prizes for today’s flight close to $510k, but the pace of entries has slowed considerably since the dinner break, with only about 10 entries since then.

The 1a players are back from dinner and into the final three levels of entry for Day 1a. The field is now at 254, and the pace of entries is slowing with just under two hours left to enter today’s flight.

The prizes are closing in on $500k for this flight already, however, which puts this as the largest Day 1a prize pool in Main Event history here in Calgary.

The 1a players are on their dinner break, with the field now above 250. That puts the prizes today higher than Day 1a from a year ago, which was the record field for a Main Event here in Calgary.

There are still about 2 hours and 45 minutes left to enter today’s flight, so it seems likely they’ll get to at least 270 entries, but it could go even higher. The 1a players will be back in action in about 30 minutes for the final three levels of entry.

They are just under 10 minutes from the dinner break, with the 1a field at 246. That puts the prizes over $480k, and closing in on the prize pool from Jan 2025, which currently holds the record for the biggest field in a Main Event.

That game got 319 entries for 1a, but was a smaller buy-in at $1,700. The $2,200 buy-in for this series has juiced up the prizes so that the next entry will push today’s prizes higher than the prizes from Day 1a a year ago.

While the flight field is still about 80 players off the record field size for Day 1a of the Main Event here, the prize pool is less than $20k away. That’s thanks to the increased buy-in for this series compared to Jan 2025, with it was a $1,700 Main Event.

This time around, it costs $2,200, and that extra juice has pushed today’s prizes up. In Jan 2025, Day 1a had a bit more than $480k in total prizes, while today’s flight is already closing in on $465k. At this point, while the 319 number may be slightly out of reach (I still expect around 300 by the time entries close), breaking the Jan 2025 1a prize pool seems like a lock this time around.

It’s one of the grossest spots in poker — when a player hits quads, they sort of expect to win the hand. It’s extremely rare to see a quads over quads hand, but that’s just what happened on Table 64. As reported by Curtis Singleton, pocket eights hit quads on the river, but the opponent in the hand turned quad aces for the best hand.

It’s a gross spot, but if you play poker and have the eights and don’t go broke in this hand, you should probably consider quitting the game. There are times in poker where you are just SUPPOSED to lose your chips, and this is one of them.

The field is up to 228 entries for Day 1b now, with Level 8 just underway. Entries are still open for more than 4 hours, so there’s still lots of time for that number to creep up into the 300 range for today’s flight.

Among the players I’ve spotted in the field today are Rob Lothian, Amir Khan, Angelo Jopek, Tommy Nguyen, Deven Lane, Skyler York, Qingwei Meng, Debi Loomer, Giulio Rosati, Thomas Taylor, Nichlas Lee, Kyle Ho, Curtis Singleton, Jeff Reardon, Anthony Smith, Jake “TheSnake” Sujata, Vince Lam, Mike Leah, Brett Worton, Kayvan Payman, and Aidan Klingbeil.

The prizes are more than $420k, with players on the break following Level 6. That leaves 6 levels of poker, plus an hour of breaks, until the entries for Day 1a of the Main are closed.

A few other faces I spotted in today’s flight so far are another former winner of the this event, Alex Liu, as well as Medhi “GitandSos” Saeed, Ash Razavi, who has been deep in this Main Event the last three times it’s run, Stephen Dauphinais, Colten Yamagishi, Michael Khan, Duff Charette, and Kris Steinbach.

The 1a field just hit 200 entries for the opening flight, with more than 15 minutes to play in Level 6. There are still about 5.5 hours left to enter today’s flight, so that number is sure to grow, but given this is 1a, I wouldn’t expect it to go much past 300 for today’s flight.

By contrast, the record Main Event field so far at WSOP-C, set in Jan 2025 with a total of 1,571, got 319 entries for Day 1a. It looks like a reasonable bet that today’s flight will be at least close to that record number, given the field size right now.

The 1a field is now ahead of the same flight from October’s Main Event, with 190 in the field. Among the players who pushed that over the top was DJ Sharma, who has just arrived for his first buy-in. Other familiar faces I’ve spotted in the crowd so far are Joon Park, Craig Caldwell, Tyler Panas, Patrick “Egption” Tardif, Michael Baldwin, Gaetano Buda, Dercon Noksana, Jeff “Ironman” Charlebois, and former Main Event champ Nicholas Teeuwen.

Day 1a of the Main Event is well underway with the action now in Level 5. The field is at 174 entries, which only puts it 14 entries behind the October Main Day 1a, with about 6.5 hours left to enter today’s flight.

I expect today’s flight to be relatively small. It will surpass 200 without question, and will likely push towards 300 or more before it closes later today, but I expect to see the truly big flight numbers to come tomorrow and Saturday.

Action was caught after the river came the A♥3♦10♥Q♥8♣, and middle position was quick to check.

Anne Ngo fired for 20,000, and her opponent went into the tank. Eventually they found the fold for Ngo to take the pot.

Anne Ngo: 52,700

Action was caught after the flop of K♦10♣Q♦, and small blind led out for 3,000. Kayvan Payman raised to 11,700, and small blind moved all in. Payman made the call, and both players revealed their holdings.

Kayvan Payman: J♦6♦
Small Blind: A♠K♥

The board completed with the 7♦6♥ for Payman to find the double.

Kayvan Payman: 64,700

Action was caught after the flop of 4♠5♠2♥, and small blind led out for 1,500. Middle position made the call, and Garett Maybery raised to 3,800.

Small blind re-raised to 14,500, and Maybery moved all in for 44,000. After some time, the small blind found the fold.

Garett Maybery: 63,000

Action was caught after the flop of K♦J♥3♥9♠, and the big blind led out for 4,500.

James Werry raised to 15,000, and his opponent was quick to make the fold.

James Werry: 47,700

Event #12: $2,200 NLH Main Event Day 1A ($1960 + $240)

The Main Event is on deck for this 2026 WSOP-C Calgary, and it could be one for the record books. The series so far is already well above the current record-holder for the biggest series ever in Jan 2024, but it will be the big games, the Main Event, and the High Roller, that really determine the final outcome.

Day 1a of the Main Event kicks off on Thursday at 11 AM, and players will have 12 levels to get into the game or rebuy, with the proviso that WSOP-C Main Events have a single-rebuy per flight rule. That limits players to a maximum of two buy-ins per flight, or 6 total across the 3 flights.

Blinds for Day 1 action are 40 minutes, and jump to an hour for Day 2/3. Players start with 40k in chips, and the day is scheduled for 17 levels. The flight will start paying out prizes at 15% of the field, and will bag up if they get to 5% before the end of Level 17, but players should be aware that flights MUST at least make the money, so Day 1 play may last longer than 17 levels if they haven’t hit 15% by then.

Last October, Travis MacMillan came in from Nova Scotia and took the Main Event Ring back home with him. He made it through 910 entries to score more than $312k after a heads-up battle with Vincent Li.