Cheerkuri & Gottiparthi Take the Big Prizes on the Final Weekend of WSOP-C Calgary Oct

The October edition of the 2026 World Series of Poker Circuit Calgary is complete, with the final prizes awarded on Sunday & Monday. The Main Event and the High Roller were the big games of the weekend and the series as a whole, with more than $2 million in prizes between them.

Two other games finished out the series, with the Freezeout on Sunday and the Double Stack Closer on Monday, with the final ring awarded after 4 AM on Monday evening (Tuesday morning lol). The prize pool on the final game was plenty to push the series prizes over the $5 million mark.

WSOP-C Calgary October at a Glance

Event	Entries	Prizes	Winner	1st Place
$400 Big 30 Stack	344	$113,520	Martin Kaspers	$23,432
$600 NLH/PLO Mix	167	$86,005	Pengju Wang	$20,862
$400 Black Chip Bounty	198	$82,170	Matthew Robertson	$19,154
$400 Mini Main Event	1,907	$629,310	Gennady Klimenko	$80,611
$600 Mystery Bounty	379	$195,185	Pavel Krumer	$24,032
$400 Seniors	459	$151,470	Jimmy Mak	$28,974
$600 NLH	359	$184,885	Stephen Klaamas	$37,763
$500 PKO	477	$200,340	Sebastian Crema	$16,537
$1,000 $1k NLH	209	$182,875	Michael Sullivan	$42,835
$400 Monster Stack	1,417	$467,430	Stephen Dauphinais	$65,165
$1,000 $1k Turbo	167	$146,125	DJ Sharma	$35,126
$2,300 Main Event	850	$1,762,050	Kalyan Cheekuri	$297,359
$400 Ladies	104	$34,320	Karyn Gemmill	$9,158
$400 PLO Bounty	478	$157,740	Andrew Fair	$20,784
$800 HORSE	74	$51,430	Fat Wong	$14,919
$500 Freezeout	293	$122,877	Jim Harnden	$26,577
$3,500 High Roller	115	$359,950	Sam Gottiparthi	$92,653
$400 Double Stack Closer	431	$142,230	Dallas Larson	$27,651
Totals:	8,428	$5,069,912		$883,592

Kalyan Cheekuri Rides the Day 3 Chip Lead to Main Event Ring

• Dates: Oct 9 – 12, 2026
• Entries: 850
• Prizes: $1,762,050 (Day 2: $1,644,849, Day 3: $951,756)
• Winner (1st Place): Kalyan Cheekuri ($297,359)

Event #12: $2,300 NLH Main Event ($2,050 + $250)

The Main Event was, as always, the biggest prize of the series, with nearly $1 million on the final table and more than $1.75 million in total for all Day 1 & Day 2/3 payouts. Those prizes came from 850 entries across the three starting flights.

Winner Kalyan Cheekuri got into Day 2 with a middle stack of about 500k, but he made it count, racking up the chips over the course of Day 2 to take the lead into the final day, when it mattered most. He rode that lead all the way until the end, but it wasn’t easy sailing when he got heads-up with Toronto crusher Tommy Nguyen.

Nguyen won a ring here in the High Roller in Jan 2025, after a heads-up battle with one of Canada’s best, Mike Leah. He also has a bracelet from the 2018 Monster Stack, so he wasn’t an easy target.

Cheekuri had a massive lead to start heads-up, with 30 million of the 34 million in play, but Nguyen wasn’t going down easy, even from the micro stack. He clawed his way back to even, but Cheekuri was on his game, finding a big call with two pair to jump back into the lead. After that, it was only a matter of time before Cheekuri took it down.

Get all the Day 3 details from Alek Gillies’ recap of the final day of action in the Main.

Final Table Results from the Main Event

See the Payouts tab on the Live Reporting Page for a look at the full Main Event prizes.

Place	Player	Prize
1	Kalyan Cheekuri	$297,359
2	Tommy Nguyen	$198,211
3	Carter Mccauley	$139,113
4	Kyle Ho	$99,185
5	Ashkan Razavi	$71,857
6	Jay Foong	$52,912
7	Michael Khan	$39,611
8	Christopher Alcindor	$30,155
9	Cong Nguyen-Vu	$23,353
10	Matt Kwong	$18,402

Sam Gottiparthi Takes High Roller Ring

• Dates: Oct 11/12, 2026
• Entries: 115
• Prizes: $359,950
• Winner (1st Place): Sam Gattiparthi ($92,653)

Event #17: $3,500 High Roller NLH ($3,130 + $370)

The High Roller was the biggest single-day prize pool of the series, with nearly $360k in prizes from 115 entries. The action began on Sunday, alongside Day 2 of the Main Event, and finished for all the money on the final day of the series, Monday.

They played down to 5 off the money on Day 1, with the bags coming out with 23 players remaining at the end of Level 15. Those 23 players came back for 1 PM on Monday to finish the game out, and it was a pretty quick Day 2, with the final hands dealt less than 8 hours later.

Joshua James finished Day 1 in the lead, but Day 2 was a bit of a bust for him, with his stack quickly diminishing before he ended his day in 16th place. Matt O’Brien, who ended up in 3rd place, was the leader as they approached the final table, but the top two players, Dylan Payne and Sam Gottiparthi, started building their stacks, emerging as the joint leaders with 8 players remaining.

O’Brien briefly regained the lead, but when Dylan Payne found a dream spot blind-on-blind against Edali Ahmed, he was back on his way to the lead. Both Payne and Gottiparthi were dialed into the game, as one hand between them showed. Payne folded kings face up on the turn with an ace-high board against the eventual winner. We’ll never know if Gottiparthi actually had the ace or not, as he didn’t show his hand, but he was tuned in enough to know he could represent it.

Gottiparthi fell short after a gross spot where he called off a big river bet with the 3rd nuts, only to run into the 2nd nuts for Payne, but Gottiparthi came right back with a double against O’Brien. He then sent O’Brien home for 3rd place to set up the head-to-head against Payne, with Gottiparthi holding a small lead, but the stacks were essentially even.

Payne once again showed he was on point in the game, mucking the bottom boat on a double-paired board after Gottiparthi made a huge move over the top of Payne’s value bet. That left Gottiparthi nearly 2:1 ahead, but a weird spot let Payne back into it.

Gottiparthi turned up the heat after that, building his lead back up again when both players spiked top pair, but Gottiparthi had the best kicker. That set up the final confrontation where they got it in with Payne dominated with king-queen into ace-queen.

Payne flopped a gutshot, but bricked the runout to leave Gottiparthi with the ace-high win. It was Gottiparthi’s first live win and first Circuit ring, but the Mississauga native had a slew of final table performances going into this one, and this will be his biggest lifetime win, slightly eclipsing his second-place finish in the Montreal Super Circuit Ultra Stack game in September of this year. Payne was also looking for his first live win and first Ring, but he will have to wait for another day.

High Roller Results

Place	Player	Prize
1	Sam Gottiparthi	$92,653
2	Dylan Payne	$61,180
3	Matthew O’Brien	$41,734
4	Garret Maybery	$29,439
5	Kelly Becker	$21,499
6	Samuel Bourque	$16,274
7	Edali Ahmed	$12,787
8	Allen Shen	$10,443
9	Julian Yasin	$8,879
10	Maddie Sharma	$7,873
11	Omar Montenegro	$7,873
12	Nan Cui	$7,293
13	Daniel Tsipris	$7,293
14	Patrick Devlin	$6,946
15	Pav Braich	$6,946
16	Joshua James	$6,946
17	Ruoxiao Shi	$6,946
18	Mike Leah	$6,946

Jim Harnden Gets Second Ring in Freezeout over Shannon Lazorko

• Date: Oct 11, 11 AM
• Entries: 293
• Prizes: $122,877
• Winner: Jim Harnden ($26,577)

Event #16: $500 NLH Freezeout ($420 + $80)

The second-to-last game of the series was the only game with no rebuys. The $500 Freezeout was a traditional one-and-done affair with only a single buy-in for each player.

The game kicked off on Sunday morning at 11 AM, and it was a nearly 16-hour marathon to get to the ring. Jim Harnden, who was 4th in the Summer Super Stack Main Event earlier this year at Deerfoot, was the last player standing.

Runner-up Shannon Lazorko was the big leader late in the game, with about half the chips in play just before two quick busts got her heads up with Harnden. Harnden evened it out quickly when Harnden doubled after Lazorko couldn’t find a third heart on the board to complete her flush draw.

Harnden never looked back and had a 2:1 lead shortly after. In the final hand, the money went in with Lazorko down to about 10 big blinds, and she got it in with a suited king. Harnden called it off with ace-six, and while Lazorko flopped her five, Harnden hit his ace on the flop and turned two pair for the win.

Harnden won his first ring way back in 2012 in the Main Event in West Palm Beach, and this was his first live win since that score.

Final Table Results for the Freezeout

See the Payouts tab on the Live Reporting Page for a full look at all the prizes.

Place	Player	Prize
1	Jim Harnden	$26,577
2	Shannon Lazorko	$17,669
3	Darrell Moore	$12,238
4	Christian Hidalgo	$8,643
5	Marvin Boychuk	$6,236
6	Latif Uyar	$4,600
7	Osbert Liu	$3,471
8	Idris Drief	$2,679
9	Brett Hoy	$2,118
10	Shoaib Syed	$1,715

Dallas Larson Dominates the Final Table for First Ring over Ramaz Haymour

• Date: Oct 12, 4 PM
• Entries: 431
• Prizes: $142,230
• Winner (1st Place): Dallas Larson ($27,651)

Event #18: $400 NLH Double Stack Closer ($330 + $70)

It was the Dallas Larson show at the final table of the final game of the series, the Double Stack Closer. He controlled the final table with the chip lead for most of it, but ended up having to face runner-up Ramaz Haymour with the stacks close to even.

It was a turbo game throughout, playing through the 431 entries in about 12 hours. About the only place things stalled a little was when they were on the final table bubble, with 11-handed play lasting for nearly an hour before the final table was set.

In addition to Larson and Haymour, there were a couple of other notables at the final table. Maddie Sharma, who finished fourth in this one, was on her second final table of the day after finishing the High Roller in 10th place earlier in the night, then jumping into the final ring event of the series.

3rd-place Marco Ferrone was also on a run in this series. When he made the final table, it was his fifth of the series, which looks to be more than any other player here in October.

But the night mostly belonged to Larson, who was playing about half the chips in play with the field six-handed. After Trung Nguyen & Sharma fell, Haymour sent Ferrone to the rail in 3rd to even up the stacks against Larson. Heads-up took less than 20 minutes to finish out, with the big difference coming in a hand that saw Haymour shove over an open to 800k (2x the 400k big blind) from Larson. Larson snapped it off with big slick against ace-ten for Haymour.

The board missed both players, and the king kicker played to leave Larson with his second live win and first Circuit ring, though his first win gave him a Regina ring in 2016. For his part, Haymour was also looking for first ring, but he had four wins coming into this game, despite only starting to play tournament poker in 2025 (he was a cash game player for a long time before that).

Final Table Results for the Double Stack Closer

Place	Player	Prize
1	Dallas Larson	$27,651
2	Ramaz Haymour	$18,409
3	Marco Ferrone	$12,823
4	Maddie Sharma	$9,105
5	Trung Nguyen	$6,594
6	Ed Sorensen	$4,872
7	Brian Cheng	$3,674
8	Robert Morgan	$2,829
9	Andy Truong	$2,225
10	Arthur Lee	$1,788

Next Stop: the 2027 WSOP-C Calgary January

That brings the curtain down on the WSOP-Circuit in Calgary for 2026, with the October series bringing in more than $5 million in total prizes through 8,428 entries across the 18 ring events. The WSOP-C will return to Deerfoot Inn & Casino in January 2027 with the sixth year of Circuit action in Calgary.

The tentative dates for January show the first games kicking off on January 6th, 2027 and while the Calgary temperatures are likely to be chilly outside, the poker action in the Chrome & Sundance rooms will be hot & heavy. Stay tuned for more details about the opening series for 2027!