By Alex Drummond, Editor-in-Chief · June 18, 2026 · Fact-checked by Maya Chen
Daniel Negreanu's first deep run in a World Series of Poker Pot-Limit Omaha event ended early Thursday afternoon at the hands of Alex Foxen, who eliminated the Toronto-born professional during Day 3 of Event #47, the $25,000 PLO High Roller, at the Paris Las Vegas. Foxen, already the chip leader after Day 2 with 6,820,000, continued to climb during the penultimate day and is positioned as the favourite heading into Friday's televised final five.
Negreanu, 51, started the day in 16th of 31 with 995,000 chips, a 20-big-blind stack at the Day 3 starting structure of 25,000/50,000 with a 50,000 big blind ante. He had locked a minimum payout of US$69,531 the previous night when the field passed the 49-player money line. By all available reporting through Thursday afternoon, his elimination was confirmed but the exact place and pay rung had not yet been published by either PokerNews or Poker.org as of this writing.
Negreanu walked into Day 3 with the kind of confidence he has carried throughout 2026. "Twenty big blinds is heaps in PLO," he told the Poker.org floor reporter ahead of cards in the air, quoted in their live blog. "They're not going to get these chips from me. We're going to be okay, we're going to go all the way." Foxen, sitting on more than 130 big blinds at the same starting structure, ultimately took those chips.
The Foxen pattern
The Foxen-Negreanu storyline is now the defining subplot of the Canadian's 2026 World Series. Poker.org described Foxen as Negreanu's "2026 WSOP nemesis" in its breaking-news bulletin. In Las Vegas one week earlier, Foxen had busted Negreanu from the $250,000 Super High Roller in 35th place outside the money, after Negreanu had bagged the fourth-largest Day 1 stack. In the $600 Deepstack Mixed NLH/PLO on June 9, Negreanu finished eighth at a final table that included Foxen in fifth and was won by Brent Gregory. Now, the $25K PLO High Roller closes the same chapter, with Foxen the executioner in the deepest live-PLO run of Negreanu's career.
Foxen's pace through the 2026 series has been remarkable on its own terms. He bagged a chip lead in the $250,000 Super High Roller, won Event #44 ($10,000 Super Turbo Bounty) on Sunday night for US$594,246 and a fourth career bracelet, and re-entered Event #47 the following morning. Three days later he leads the same event with more than 130 big blinds and is among the favourites for a fifth bracelet that would make him the only player to win two open-buy-in WSOP bracelets within a single week at the 2026 series.
Foxen also currently leads the WSOP Player of the Year race, ahead of Spain's Adrian Mateos, who two days earlier won the $250,000 Super High Roller for US$4,334,411 and his sixth bracelet, becoming the youngest player ever to reach six.
Anderson takes Razz, and a record
The other major Day 23 story unfolded one room over at Event #48, the $10,000 Razz Championship, which closed late Wednesday night with Calvin Anderson winning his sixth WSOP bracelet for US$357,026. The result makes Anderson the most-decorated Razz player in WSOP history, with two Razz Championship titles to his name (his first came in 2018) and three additional bracelets in mixed-game championships including the 2024 $10,000 8-Game Mix.
Anderson defeated runner-up Eric Rodawig heads-up after entering the final table as chip leader with 1,885,000. Norway's Tobias Leknes and Germany's Max Kruse, the former professional footballer who has built a second career on the mixed-game circuit, finished fourth and fifth respectively.
| Place | Player | Country | Prize (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Calvin Anderson | United States | $357,026 |
| 2 | Eric Rodawig | United States | $237,851 |
| 3 | Todd Dakake | United States | $162,551 |
| 4 | Tobias Leknes | Norway | $114,032 |
| 5 | Max Kruse | Germany | $82,171 |
| 6 | Yuval Bronshtein | Israel | $60,868 |
| 7 | Philip Sternheimer | United Kingdom | $46,385 |
| 8 | Shane Littlefield | United States | $36,395 |
Event #48: $10,000 Razz Championship final table. Anderson's winning hand was Q-9-8-7-5-4-A. Source: PokerNews live reporting.
No Canadian player appeared at the Razz Championship final table. The closest Ontario tie-in to the discipline this summer remains Negreanu's seventh-place finish in the $1,500 Razz event earlier in June, which paid US$16,174 to Paul Richardson of Ottawa.
Day 3 of Event #47, status check
Foxen's chip lead, which sat at 6,820,000 at end of Day 2, has continued to grow through the early levels of Day 3 according to running updates on the PokerNews live blog. The field is targeted to play down to a final five by end of Thursday night, with Friday June 19 reserved for the final-day broadcast on PokerGO. The original 329-entry field has been reduced by 78 per cent. Forty-nine players cashed for at least US$69,531. The eventual winner will collect a projected US$2,161,056 first-place prize, per the published payout structure cited by Spade Poker.
Key short stacks in the Day 3 mid-pack carrying Canadian or Canadian-adjacent profiles, beyond Negreanu, were limited. The 31 returning players included no Canadian flag-bearers other than Negreanu, although Tom Vogelsang of the Netherlands and Chenxiang Miao of China both lived in Toronto during portions of the previous decade and have been listed in various media outlets with Canadian ties.
Foxen's path to the bracelet still requires navigating Chenxiang Miao, Sergio Martinez Gonzalez, Hungary's Benjamin Juhasz, Jeremy Druckman, Eelis Parssinen and Chance Kornuth, all of whom started Day 3 with stacks above 50 big blinds. The structure favours the leader through the early levels, but PLO at the deep end remains volatile in a way No-Limit Hold'em is not. A single bad flopped wrap could level the field by Friday morning.
The Negreanu 2026 ledger
Negreanu's Event #47 cash, the eighth deepest of his 2026 World Series of Poker, is his first cash of the series. Through Wednesday night he had registered for at least 11 bracelet events, busted close to the bubble in the $250,000 Super High Roller and made multiple Day 2s without a final table. His career WSOP earnings, per the WSOP.com player standings, sit at approximately US$33.6 million, well clear of second place Phil Hellmuth at US$20.1 million and Alex Foxen at US$29.4 million. Negreanu remains the most-cashed Canadian in WSOP history at 266 lifetime cashes.
The eighth bracelet that would have drawn him level with Phil Ivey, Erik Seidel and Men Nguyen on the all-time list remains on hold. Negreanu has not won a bracelet since 2024, when he took the $50,000 Poker Players Championship for US$1,167,850 and ended an 11-year drought. His next live opportunity at this series will likely come in the $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. Championship (Event #54), which starts Thursday afternoon, or in the WSOP Main Event itself, which opens July 2 at the Horseshoe.
The Canadian summer, updated
Through Event #48 the 2026 World Series has produced three Canadian-flag bracelets, with combined gold of US$2,395,570. Frederic Normand won Event #21 PLO Hi-Lo on June 6 for US$235,377. Kristen Foxen, born in St. Catharines, Ontario, won Event #19 $25K High Roller on June 7 for US$1,773,083 under the Canadian flag. Christopher Alcindor closed the hat-trick on June 8 with the Big O for US$387,110. Clayton Mozdzen finished runner-up in Event #37 H.O.R.S.E. for US$122,206 on June 12. Orlando Moretti of Bolton, Ontario added US$64,992 with a sixth-place finish in the $800 Deepstack on June 16. Negreanu's locked US$69,531 from Event #47 lifts the Canadian notable-cash tally to roughly US$2,652,299.
The 2026 Player of the Year list now reads Foxen first (boosted by Sunday's Event #44 win and projected to extend with a strong Day 4 in Event #47), Mateos second after the $250K SHR, and Kristen Foxen third under the United States flag in the WSOP standings system. The next major bracelet event with a meaningful Canadian field is the Mystery Millions ($1,000 buy-in, Event #63, starts June 23), which historically pulls hundreds of recreational entries from across Ontario through GGPoker Ontario satellites.
What to watch Friday
The Event #47 final five will return Friday June 19 at noon local time for the PokerGO broadcast. The chip leader at end of Day 3 will need to navigate a top-heavy payout schedule in which first place is roughly US$2.16 million and ninth place was US$73,933. A final-table appearance for Foxen, particularly a heads-up duel, would produce one of the more remarkable individual stretches of any modern WSOP, with two bracelets in eight days across two different disciplines.
Ontario players can follow the action via the PokerGO live stream and through PokerNews live reporting. Players interested in WSOP Super Circuit Canada satellites at Playground in August can review the GGPoker Ontario page; the broader regulated market is covered on the best poker sites in Ontario overview, and the tournament schedule covers the next four weeks of regulated guarantees across all six rooms.