Opening day of the 2026 January ring series in Calgary was a solid start to the year. Both games on the first day of the series beat their October 2025 numbers by significant margins.
The opening game, the Big 30 Stack, got 404 entries, surpassing the October total by more than 30, while the NLH/PLO Mix attracted 201 entries, an increase of 18 over the October series. Between the two games on Day 1, more than $240k have already been awarded compared to about $210k in October.
Shawn Johnson Wins First Rin in Big 30 Stack
- Entries: 404
- Prizes: $134,017
- Winner: Shawn Johnson ($28,013)
The Big 30 Stack this time around drew more than 30 extra players over the field from October 2025, putting an extra $12,000 into the prizes for a final total of more than $134k. Shawn Johnson picked up his first ring in just his 3rd recorded cash on Hendon Mob.
His second cash came here in Calgary back in 2022, in the inaugural WSOP Circuit series here at Deerfoot with a 47th place finish in the Double Stack game. His first cash was in 2019 at the WSOP in Vegas when he was 3074th in the Big 50. Neither of those scores were very big, and this cash today of more than $28k will dwarf his previous lifetime earnings.
He didn’t have an easy final table to get through. He was joined in the final 10 by Anthony Casten, Victor Ma, and Curtis Singleton, among others. Ma was in the final three before ending his run in 3rd place.
Henry Friesen ended up surviving through to heads up against Johnson, despite being the shortest stack at the table for most of the FT. He was able to find doubles to stay alive when he needed to, laddering up consistently as bigger stack busted while he waited for his spots.
In the end, he couldn’t overcome the huge deficit against Johnson and had to settle for second, while Johnson picked up the ring.
2026 WSOP Calgary Event #1 Big 30 Top Ten
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Shawn Johnson | $28,013 |
| 2 | Henry Friesen | $18,337 |
| 3 | Victor Ma | $12,311 |
| 4 | Eric Vansteelandt | $8,470 |
| 5 | Sukhpal Sihota | $5,975 |
| 6 | Curtis Singleton | $4,324 |
| 7 | Anthony Casten | $3,213 |
| 8 | Chris Kenoras | $2,452 |
| 9 |  Vo Nguyen | $1,925 |
| 10 | Bruce Takeda | $1,554 |
Mehmet Siginc Wins Second Ring, Denies Nicholas Lee His Fifth
- Entries: 201
- Prizes: $103,865
- Winner: Mehmet Siginc ($24,850)
The final table of the NLH/PLO Mix was full of the usual suspects. In addition to winner Mehmet Siginc, the FT featured Edmonton PLO ace Stefan Maloney, Mike Malm (2024 & 2025 API Player of the Year), Peter Darlington, Weston Pring, and 3rd place Amir Khan, as well as four-time ring winner Nicholas Lee.
It was a pretty quick run through the final 10 players. It took a little over 3 hours to get from 10 down to 1, with a steady pace of busts throughout. Lee and Siginc were among the big stacks for much of the FT, but by the time they got heads up, Johnson had a big lead.
He wasn’t able to finish it out right away, however, as Lee kept finding doubles to stay alive when he needed to. It wasn’t until near the end of the match that he managed to stack up to a slight lead when his ace-ten cracked the pocket deuces of Siginc.
That didn’t last long, however. Over the next couple of hands, he was chipped back down, then they found a cooler with Lee shoving king-ten and Siginc calling with ace-nine. The ace-nine held, and Siginc had his second ring while denying Lee his fifth.
2026 WSOP Circuit Calgary Event #2 NLH/PLO Top Ten
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mehmet Siginc | $24,850 |
| 2 | Nicholas Lee | $15,965 |
| 3 | Amir Khan | $10,692 |
| 4 | Dolore Elumir | $7,384 |
| 5 |  Maksym Shkurupii | $5,265 |
| 6 | Stefan Maloney | $3,879 |
| 7 | Mike Malm | $2,956 |
| 8 | Peter Darlington | $2,334 |
| 9 | Neil Smith | $1,991 |
| 10 | Weston Pring | $1,624 |
