Lahey, Kogan Win Rings Midway Through Series

The 2026 WSOP-C Calgary Jan got to the halfway point on Tuesday, with two rings awarded, as well as a monster of a Monster Stack flight. With the numbers so far in this series, Jan 2026 is shaping up to potentially be the biggest series ever in the Alberta poker market.

Tuesday’s mid-series action saw both $1k games play down to a winner. Day 2 of the Two-Day $1k kicked off at 2 PM on Tuesday with 64 players (from a field of 440) returning to compete for nearly $80k up top. A couple of hours after that game resumed, the Turbo edition of the $1k started, finishing around 10 hours after the first hands were dealt.

In addition to the double $1k action, one of the most popular events of the series, the Monster Stack, ran its opening flight, continuing the trend of big fields.

James Lahey Wins First Ring in Two-Day $1k

• Entries: 440
• Prizes: $384,550
• Winner: James Lahey ($79,126)

The Two-Day $1k event got a solid turnout on Day 1, getting 440 entries by the time registration closed. After that, they played through the 15 scheduled levels to leave 64 players returning on Tuesday’s Day 2, all in the money.

They returned to the felt at 2 PM on Tuesday to play down to a winner, and it was a full, 12-hour day to decide the ring. Christian Wallmuth bagged the biggest stack on Day 1, and rode that all the way to the final table for a fourth-place finish, but James Lahey’s path to the ring came from the other end. He came into the final day a bit shorter, with 300k to start the day compared to Wallmuth’s 527k.

Lahey turned it up by the final table, however. He was chip leading with 8 players left, though Angelo Jopek was nipping at his heels just barely behind, with Andy Truong not too far away. They played down to four left pretty quickly before the action stalled with the game playing 4-handed for more than an hour.

Start-of-Day leader Wallmuth eventually broke that logjam, ending his run in fourth after runner-up Sebastian Crema took a chunk from his stack to leave him short. Lahey was the big leader four ways, but Crema was climbing, and a few hands later, it was Crema on the big lead after the exit of Wallmuth.

Scott Carragher was the short man in the final three, and he bowed out shortly before 1 AM, leaving Lahey and Crema heads up for the ring. Crema came into heads up about 3:1 up, but Lahey wasn’t going down easily.

Lahey was playing great, but as is often the case in these big games, he also had to find some rungood to get there in the end. He was all-in at risk to Crema, racing with pocket fours against queen-nine, when Crema flopped a nine to take the lead for the ring. Lahey found three to a straight on the flop, however, then proceeded to go runner-runner wheel to double up and stay alive.

That still left Crema with the lead, but Lahey was a lot closer. A few hands later, the script flipped to put Lahey well in front. After Crema four-bet shoved preflop and Lahey called, it was ace-king for Lahey versus ace-jack for Crema. Crema turned four to a flush and looked like he could end it right there, but the brick river left the ace-king in front, and gave Lahey a huge lead.

It all ended a few hands later when Crema shoved queen-ten, but ran into ace-king again for Lahey. The board was clean for the big slick, and Lahey had his first ring.

He was close to a ring back in Jan 2024 in the Black Chip Bounty, but he had to settle for runner-up back then. Tuesday, he was able to step up to the top rung of the ladder for not only his first ring, but also his first live win and his biggest ever live score.

Final Table Results from Two-Day $1k

Place	Player	Prize
1	James Lahey	$79,126
2	Sebastian Crema	$52,731
3	Scott Carragher	$36,101
4	Christian Wallmuth	$25,220
5	James Martin	$17,986
6	Andy Truong	$13,100
7	Angelo Jopek	$9,749
8	Andrew Macdonald	$7,416
9	Aidan Klingbeil	$5,770
10	Chao Lu	$4,594

Joel Kogan Wins Second Ring in Turbo $1k

• Entries: 222
• Prizes: $194,250
• Winner: Joel Kogan ($44,969)

The second ring event on Tuesday was the Turbo edition of the $1k game. The big difference from the Two-Day game was that the blinds were half as long, at 20 minutes instead of 40, and the game would play out over just a single day.

In fact, it very much lived up to the Turbo name, playing down through 222 entries in around 10 hours. The final table for this game was playing out at exactly the same time as the Two-Day game, with both games finishing up around 2 AM.

Joel Kogan made his way through the field, getting to heads up with Seong Choi holding a big chip lead. Choi didn’t have many moves left in his stack, and in the final hand, the money went in on the flop when Choi flopped a pair of sevens.

Kogan was drawing to a spade flush with nine-four of spades, a suited version of the same hand he won his first ring with back in Jan 2024 here at Deerfoot. The turn left Choi ahead for the double, but the river spade sent the win to Kogan.

This was his third live win and second Circuit ring. He won his first ring in the $400 Black Chip Bounty game in Jan 2024, and he also picked up a win in 2023 at Playground during their July Power Week. This win, worth nearly $45k, is his biggest score yet, and should push his lifetime earnings close to $200k.

Final Table Results from Turbo $1k

Place	Player	Prize
1	Joel Kogan	$44,969
2	Seong Hoon Choi	$29,667
3	Kyle Goodwin	$20,103
4	Andrew Sabbagh	$13,996
5	Nikola Boseovski	$10,020
6	Matthew Osorio	$7,382
7	David Quang	$5,601
8	Bobby Jones	$4,381
9	Josh Hopkins	$3,536
10	Denis Mujcin	$2,948

Huge Opening Flight to the Monster

• Entries: 32/633
• Prizes: $208,375 ($54,111 Awarded on Day 1a)
• Chip Leader: Joshua Greville (1.855 million, 46.4 big blinds)

Mid-series here always means it’s time for the Monster to stomp through the casino. The opening flight to this year’s Monster Stack didn’t disappoint, drawing a huge crowd of 633 entries.

By comparison, the opening flight for the Monster Stack back in Jan 2024, the series that continues to hold the record for the biggest combined prize pool ever in this market, got 530 entries, 100 fewer than this year’s opening flight.

The opening flight played a bit longer than 22 levels, with the hard stop for the game at the end of Level 24. They got down to 5% of the field (32 players) with about 25 minutes to play in Level 23, so 20k/40k/40k are the biggest possible blinds for Day 2. If Day 1b ends earlier, however, the Day 2 blinds will be rolled back to the earliest end time.

Joshua Greville bagged the big stack on Day 1a, with nearly 50 big blinds in his bag for Day 2, but a bigger field on Day 1b may well spell bigger stacks at the top end. The final Monster flight plays out on Wednesday, and every indication points to it being among the biggest Monster Stack flights ever here in Calgary.

Top Ten Stacks from Day 1a of the Monster Stack