Joey Couden Denies Shaun Deeb a Ninth Bracelet in WSOP $3,000 Nine Game Mix; Canada's Thomas Taylor Cashes Fourth

By Alex Drummond, Editor-in-Chief · June 20, 2026 · Fact-checked by Maya Chen

Joey Couden defeated Shaun Deeb heads-up at the Paris Las Vegas late Friday night to win Event #52 of the 2026 World Series of Poker, the $3,000 Nine Game Mix, banking the US$254,470 first prize and denying Deeb a ninth career WSOP bracelet. Canada's Thomas Taylor of Medicine Hat, Alberta, finished fourth for US$76,510, his second consecutive year inside the top four of a WSOP Nine-Game Mix bracelet event.

Couden, 35, entered heads-up at an almost five-to-one chip deficit. Four hours later, after a slow and methodical reversal across a rotating format that cycles No-Limit Hold'em, Pot-Limit Omaha, Limit Hold'em, Razz, Stud, Stud-Eight, Big O, 2-7 Triple Draw and Omaha Hi-Lo, he carved Deeb's lead down to even, then steadily past, and finally took the bracelet. It is Couden's third WSOP title, after his first in 2019 in a $1,500 Big O event and his second in 2024 in a $5,000 Eight Game Mix. The US$254,470 score is also his largest live tournament cash to date.

Deeb's runner-up payday of US$166,540 extends what has become the dominant negative narrative of the eight-time bracelet winner's 2026 series. It is his third heads-up loss at this WSOP, and his seventeenth final-table appearance in a bracelet event without breaking through to a ninth title. He had begun the summer dealing with a personal hex storyline that he himself framed as the work of WWE professional wrestler Danhausen, who reportedly "cursed" Deeb at a meet-and-greet earlier in the year; Deeb had logged just one cash through more than sixty bullets before bagging the chip lead in this event on Day 2.

The final table

Event #52 drew a record 472 entries and produced a prize pool of US$1,260,240. The previous mark for the format, set in 2024 at 421 entries, fell roughly two hours into Day 1 registration. The top seven cashes paid out as follows.

Thomas Taylor, the country's quiet mixed-game machine

Taylor, who lists Medicine Hat, Alberta, as his hometown, has spent the past decade building one of the more decorated mixed-game resumes of any Canadian tournament player. According to figures published by the Hendon Mob, he sits at approximately US$2.71 million in career live tournament earnings across roughly 145 cashes, the second-highest live total of any player born in Alberta, behind only Calgary's Randy Holland.

His resume includes a 2010 WSOP Circuit ring in Atlantic City, a recent Super Stack series H.O.R.S.E. title at the Deerfoot Inn and Casino in Calgary, and a runner-up finish in last summer's WSOP Event #58, the $3,000 Seven-Handed Nine-Game Mixed event, for US$149,152. He also notched fifteen cashes at the 2025 series, the most of any Canadian-flag player that summer. He has never won a WSOP bracelet.

"Most people's short list for Best Canadian Player without a bracelet," is how Poker Pro framed Taylor's standing during last year's WSOP coverage. Friday's fourth-place finish does little to change that ledger except in dollar terms, but it does extend a noteworthy pattern. Taylor has now finished inside the top four of a WSOP Nine-Game Mix bracelet event in two consecutive Junes, despite a field size that grew by twelve per cent year-over-year.

For Ontario players, the Alberta connection is regional rather than provincial, but Taylor is the sort of cross-Canada deep-runner whose presence at a mixed-game final table provides a Canadian leaderboard floor that has rarely lifted in the last few WSOP seasons. He is now the third Canadian to register a top-eight finish at the 2026 series in a format other than No-Limit Hold'em, after Frederic Normand (PLO Hi-Lo) and Christopher Alcindor (Big O).

The Couden comeback, in three rotations

Couden's heads-up reversal was structurally interesting because it played across roughly six full rotations of the nine-game wheel. PokerNews live coverage reports that Couden took down major pots in 2-7 Triple Draw, Big O and Razz across the third and fourth hours, with the largest single hand coming in a Stud-Eight pot in which Deeb committed his middle stack with two pair on fifth street and rivered into a Couden eight-low. By the time the rotation came back around to No-Limit Hold'em in hour five, Couden held a 3:1 lead, and Deeb did not see another decisive flop.

The lost lead is now the structural pattern of Deeb's 2026 series. At the 2026 WSOP Europe in Rozvadov in April he lost heads-up in the €3,300 Pot-Limit Omaha Mixed event to Germany's Frank Koopmann. In Las Vegas last week he was eliminated in 18th place in the $3,000 Big O. The Nine Game Mix loss is his third runner-up bracelet finish of the 2026 summer.

"This was one of the best feelings of my life," Couden said in a brief post-win statement captured by Spade Poker. "Beating a player like Shaun in heads-up, in this format, with that chip deficit at the start, is not something I expected when we started today."

The day's side story: Brazilian player disqualified for smoking at the table

Event #52 produced one of the more bizarre disqualifications of the 2026 series. During Day 2 play, Brazilian player João Siqueira was disqualified by a floor supervisor after refusing to extinguish a cigarette at the table when asked. The disqualification was compounded by what the floor team subsequently identified as excessive alcohol consumption and the discovery of chips concealed in Siqueira's pocket, a separate infraction that under WSOP rules carries automatic disqualification.

Security escorted Siqueira from the room without further incident, and the WSOP issued no formal statement beyond the disqualification ruling. Siqueira's stack was distributed to the remaining players at his table by the floor staff in standard fashion. The combination of the three infractions in one hand sequence is, by historical accounts, unprecedented at a Las Vegas WSOP bracelet event of this size.

The Canadian summer, updated

Through Event #52, the 2026 World Series has produced three Canadian-flag bracelets, with combined gold of US$2,395,570. Below the bracelets, the secondary ledger now includes Clayton Mozdzen ($122,206 runner-up Event #37), Elliot Smith ($75,390 seventh Event #49), Thomas Taylor ($76,510 fourth Event #52), Orlando Moretti ($64,992 sixth Event #43) and Daniel Negreanu ($69,531 26th Event #47). The series running total for Canadian notable cash now exceeds US$2.8 million with roughly twelve days of bracelet events remaining before the WSOP Main Event opens on July 2.

What to watch on Sunday

Three bracelet events conclude or run pivotal days on Sunday. Event #50, the $1,500 Millionaire Maker, runs Day 1D Saturday and combined Day 2 Sunday, with a field that is on pace to draw between 8,500 and 10,500 total entries; the WSOP Day 25 report at end of play Friday listed combined Day 1A through 1C registration at approximately 6,400 entries. Event #51, the $10,000 Mystery Bounty No-Limit Hold'em, plays Day 3 with the bracelet expected late Sunday night. Event #54, the $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. Championship, plays Day 2 with a field of Canadian regulars including Daniel Negreanu, Mike Leah and Kristen Foxen.

Ontario players watching from home can follow the action on the PokerNews live blog and the PokerGO Mystery Bounty broadcast. Players interested in WSOP Super Circuit Canada satellites at Playground in August can review the GGPoker Ontario page; the regulated market overview is on the best poker sites in Ontario page; and the tournament schedule covers the next four weeks of regulated guarantees across all six operators.

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