Jerry Li Wins 3rd PLO Ring in PLO Bounty

The 2026 World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOP-C) Calgary is coming to a close as the final weekend of play dawns. The big games for the weekend will be the Main Event and the High Roller, with the Main Event already well into its opening days.

Friday marked Day 1b of the Main, and after two starting days, the biggest game on the schedule looked to be turning into the biggest game of all time here at Deerfoot Inn & Casino. With two days of buy-ins in the books, this year’s Main was well ahead of the current record-holder for the biggest prize pool ever here in Alberta.

In addition to the second flight to the Main Event, the side game on Day 10 of the series was the PLO Bounty game. While this game usually gets a good turnout, the interest for this edition was through the roof, crushing the previous best field in this event by a couple of hundred entries.

Jerry Li Wins Another One in 4-Card Poker

• Entries: 569
• Prizes: $187,770 Combined Prizes ($130,870 Prizes, $56,900 Bounties)
• Winner: Jerry Li ($25,150)

Jerry Li likes to say, “I got lucky,” when you congratulate him after a win, and for a poker player to acknowledge the role that luck plays in the game is a good thing. But equally, everyone who plays this game knows it’s ultimately a game of skill, as evidenced by many of the same faces getting to the top of the games over and over.

And, when you’ve just picked up your 3rd ring in a single discipline, and you have a bracelet to go with the jewelry collection, it’s pretty clear there’s more going on than just luck. Every player needs to get lucky a few times in a tournament to come out the winner, but they don’t get those chances late in the game without being skillful enough to manage their way to the endgame.

In Li’s case in this one, he was a bit of a wrecking ball near the end of it. Earlier in the night, it was Michael Khan who tended to have the big stack. He led the way as they entered the pay zone, with David Zoerb and Pav Braich just behind.

As play got deeper, however, Li turned it up, and by the time they got to two tables, Li was second in chips behind Khan. Li continued to build, getting to the FT with the big stack, and maintaining it through the final phase.

Despite the massive field, the game played relatively quickly, going through the 569 entries in about 11 hours of poker. Li was certainly running hot towards the end of the game, but his relentless aggression at the FT was a huge part of his success as well.

As they got shorter at the FT, he was raising nearly every hand preflop, challenging the shorter stacks to play with him. More often than not, he found a way to take those pots down, and he was responsible for most of the bustouts at the final table, building a stack of bounty chips worth at least $2k.

In the final hand, the money went in on a flop that saw runner-up Scott Fingland get the rest of his stack in with aces as an overpair to the board, while Li was wrapped up tight with six-six-seven-eight and nine-five on the flop. Li got there on the turn for his straight, and it was all over.

This is Li’s 3rd PLO ring here in Calgary, and a couple of years ago in Vegas, he added a bracelet to his jewelry box. While there’s no doubt luck plays a part in Li’s game, as it does for everyone who plays, it’s equally clear that Li may just know a little bit about how to play four-card poker effectively as well.

Final Table Results from PLO Bounty

Place	Player	Prize
1	Jerry Li	$25,150
2	Scott Fingland	$16,735
3	Michael Khan	$11,372
4	Wesley Peters	$7,892
5	Thomas Taylor	$5,596
6	Nu Teliani	$4,056
7	Jinny Nguyen	$3,006
8	Robert Orosz	$2,280
9	Hai Xuan Oan	$1,770
10	Michael Elborn	$1,408

Main Event Heads for Record Territory after Two Flights

• Entries: 54/411 (92/682)
• Prizes: $805,560 ($1,310,162 total)

Friday also marked the second of three flights to the Main Event, and every indication is that this Main Event will be a record-breaker. The current record holder was the January 2024 Main Event, which got a total of $2.34 million in prizes after three flights.

After Day 1b in 2024, the prizes were at about $1.17 million going into the final day of entries. For this year’s game, that two-day total was more than $1.3 million, about $150k over the two-day total from 2024, setting a record pace for 2026.

The results from Day 1c will be what determines the final answer here, but even a very modest third flight should still be able to set a new record in this one. After two days, Edmonton’s Jo Teliani leads the way as the only millionaire stack, but Dylan Payne is close behind with just shy of a million. Day 1a leader Oleksii Mezhenkov looks to be third in chips for Day 2, but that could all change after Saturday’s Day 1c finishes.

Time will tell, but this Main Event looks almost certain to set a new prize pool record for the Alberta market, and by extension, that also means this series as a whole is very likely to set a new record. Once again, it was January 2024 setting the previous series record, with just over $5.8 million in total prizes across the series. The High Roller turnout will be what truly determines the final tally for the series, but given the numbers so far, the first Calgary series of $6 million or more is definitely in sight.

Top Ten Stacks after Two Flights to the Main Event