Daniel Negreanu Eliminated From $50,000 Poker Players Championship Before Late Registration Closes; Halifax's Alex Livingston Carries Canada Into Day 3 With Top-Ten Stack

By Alex Drummond, Editor-in-Chief · June 23, 2026 · Fact-checked by Maya Chen

Daniel Negreanu, Toronto-born and seven-time WSOP bracelet winner, was eliminated from Event #60, the $50,000 Poker Players Championship, on Tuesday afternoon at the Horseshoe Las Vegas, falling in a Seven Card Stud 8-or-Better hand to American mixed-game regular Justin Kalas before late registration had even closed. The early exit ends a frustrating 2026 series for the most decorated Canadian poker professional and removes him from the only major championship of the summer schedule he had not yet won. Across the same room, Halifax-based Canadian pro Alex Livingston bagged 1,060,000 chips to enter Wednesday's Day 3 ninth in the official chip counts, the lone Canadian flag still standing in the WSOP's most prestigious mixed-game showcase.

Negreanu drew 247,000 chips on his Day 1 starting stack and worked the bag through a quiet first session, advancing to Day 2 with a slightly below-average count, according to the PokerNews live counts for Event #60 Day 1. He returned for Day 2 on Monday, June 22, but ran into difficulty almost immediately. By the time the field had moved out of mid-Stud 8-or-Better and into late registration, he had been eliminated by Kalas's flush in the same eight-game rotation, per the Spade Poker Day 28 wrap. Late registration in the PPC remains open until the start of Level 10, approximately 7:30 p.m. on Day 2; Negreanu was already on the rail before the cards were even dealt at that point.

The Chip Reese Trophy and Negreanu's PPC history

The Poker Players Championship is the WSOP's deliberate showcase of mixed-game excellence. Now contested in an eight-game rotation that includes No-Limit Hold'em, Pot-Limit Omaha, Seven Card Stud, Razz, Limit Hold'em, 2-7 Triple Draw, Stud 8-or-Better and Omaha 8-or-Better, the event awards the Chip Reese Memorial Trophy to its winner and is widely regarded inside the professional ranks as the most prestigious bracelet on the schedule, even alongside the $10,000 No-Limit Hold'em Main Event.

Negreanu's relationship with the PPC has been complicated. He won the event in 2024 for US$1,177,200, his sixth career bracelet at the time and his first in a mixed-game format since the 2008 $2,000 Limit Hold'em title. The 2024 win prompted him to describe the PPC as the only bracelet on the schedule he genuinely chased every year. The defending champion at the start of this year's event was American Michael Mizrachi, who in 2025 captured his fourth career PPC title, the most in event history. Mizrachi is unable to defend in 2026: he was eliminated late on Day 2 (June 22), as confirmed in PokerNews's Day 27 wrap titled "Mizrachi's Quest To Win His Fifth $50K PPC Fails."

Negreanu's 2026 series has otherwise been quiet. He cashed twenty-sixth in Event #47, the $25,000 PLO High Roller, for US$69,531, a tournament eventually won by Eelis Pärssinen, and bagged a Day 2 stack in Event #44, the $25,000 Heads-Up Championship, before exiting in the round of 16. He missed the cash in three other events and is, as of Tuesday, no longer alive in any open WSOP gold-bracelet tournament heading into the second-half schedule that includes the Mystery Millions, the Main Event Salutes and the WSOP Main Event itself.

Alex Livingston, Halifax, and a quietly impressive run

While the cameras tracked Negreanu's exit, the steadier Canadian story belonged to Alex Livingston. The 38-year-old Halifax, Nova Scotia native is best known to North American poker audiences for finishing third in the 2019 WSOP Main Event for US$4,000,000, the deepest Canadian Main Event run since Jonathan Duhamel's 2010 victory and one of the best Canadian results of the past decade. Livingston is a fixture of the high-stakes tournament circuit, with cumulative live earnings now in excess of US$8 million, per the Hendon Mob, and a quiet, methodical playing style that has aged well into his thirties.

Livingston bagged 1,060,000 chips at the conclusion of Day 2, ninth in the official PokerNews counts. He finished ahead of Russia's Maksim Pisarenko (1,083,000) on the Day 2 list and within striking range of the leading group. With the field cut to thirty-nine players entering Day 3, Livingston is a single double-up away from being a legitimate threat to make the final five and play for the Chip Reese Trophy on Thursday or Friday. The eventual champion will earn approximately US$1,690,000, with the runner-up collecting roughly US$1,044,000, against a finalised prize pool of US$5,130,000 across 108 entries, the largest PPC field since 2013.

Hellmuth's COVID return and the Tong storyline

The other significant Day 2 PPC narrative was the return of Phil Hellmuth, the all-time WSOP bracelet leader at seventeen, who had been absent from the series for nearly two weeks after testing positive for COVID-19. Hellmuth flew back to Las Vegas on Monday morning and bought into the PPC at registration, working his sub-150,000 stack to 900,000 by the bag, a near-triple-up powered by what live commentators described as a "burrito act" of slow-motion Hollywood and end-of-day double-ups. He enters Day 3 in third place behind chip leader Kristopher Tong and English mixed-game specialist Benny Glaser.

Tong is a familiar name to Las Vegas mid-stakes regulars and a frequent deep finisher in the Aria Poker Open and World Poker Tour Las Vegas mixed-game side events, with one prior WSOP cash and a series of close-call PPC and 8-Game Mix runs. He has not previously held a chip lead at this stage of a $50,000 buy-in event. Glaser, sitting just behind him, is one of the most accomplished living mixed-game tournament players, with five WSOP bracelets including the 2018 PPC's predecessor format and three Razz Championship titles.

Bo Chen leads Millionaire Maker Day 4 as Frederic Normand falls

While the PPC moved into its first day off, Event #50, the $1,500 Millionaire Maker, played its Day 4 session at Paris Las Vegas with sixty-two players returning from a Day 3 that had compressed the field from 424. American Bo Chen took the day's chip lead at 13,300,000 after running a massive last-hand pot through Rob Kuhn, the Americas Cardroom Pro who had led for most of Day 3 but bagged just five and a half big blinds for the restart. Day 4 is scheduled to play down to the final five, with the eventual winner earning US$1,250,000 and the runner-up collecting US$1,000,000 against a US$15,623,347 prize pool generated by 11,769 total entries, the second-largest field in WSOP history.

Among the players who did not return for Day 4 was Frederic Normand, the Quebec native who captured the year's first Canadian bracelet on June 7 in Event #21, the $1,500 PLO Hi-Lo, for US$235,377. Normand bagged Day 2 with a stack just short of average and was eliminated in the early-to-middle stages of Day 3 along with bracelet winners Eugene Katchalov, Jason Wheeler and Simeon Spasov, per the PokerNews Day 3 chip count update. Kristen Foxen, the St. Catharines-born American-flagged professional who won the $25,000 High Roller earlier this month, was not on the Day 4 list and exited the tournament during Day 3 as well; her elimination was not recorded in the live updates by name. The Canadian-flag tally in the Millionaire Maker now reads zero players still alive.

Mystery Millions opens; Chin claims the $1,500 2-7 Triple Draw

Two new significant events took place alongside the PPC and Millionaire Maker action. Event #63, the $1,000 Mystery Millions multi-flight no-limit hold'em event, opened on Tuesday afternoon at the Horseshoe Las Vegas. The Mystery Millions structure, introduced to the schedule in 2024, layers a randomised mystery-bounty payout pool on top of the standard prize-pool distribution. The 2025 edition drew 18,372 entries and produced a US$2.5 million top prize plus a US$1 million mystery-bounty envelope; 2026 is structured with up to four Day 1 flights and is expected to comfortably clear 20,000 entries based on early-flight registration. Day 1A continues into Tuesday evening at the Horseshoe.

Event #58, the $1,500 2-7 No-Limit Lowball Triple Draw, finalised on Tuesday with a result that warrants its own paragraph. American mixed-game player Michelle Chin won the event for her first WSOP gold bracelet, defeating a final table that included two-time bracelet winner Naoya Kihara to claim the title and a first-place prize that PokerNews has not yet officially listed but is expected to fall in the US$140,000 to US$160,000 band based on field size. Chin holds a separate distinction as the first female WSOP Circuit Main Event champion, a record set in 2024, and the 2-7 Triple Draw bracelet now makes her the first woman to win a WSOP bracelet in a single-game lowball event since Vanessa Selbst's 2010 $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha victory. The result was confirmed in the PokerNews 2026 WSOP daily live blog.

Salute to Warriors and Event #62

Two more events ran into Tuesday night. Event #59, the $500 Salute to Warriors, played its Day 3 down to thirty-five with American 2006 Main Event champion Jamie Gold leading at 15,700,000 entering the day before fading to a seventeenth-place finish, marking one of his deepest WSOP runs since 2012. The leader board remained stacked with Indian pro Jeevan Lobo at 14,850,000 and Japan's Sho Shiratori at 10,275,000. Sho Shiratori, a recognisable figure in the Japanese poker scene through the M-League's Shibuya Abemas mahjong franchise, sits in the chip-stack range that suggests a strong final-table chance. The eventual winner of Event #59 collects approximately US$208,800 against a US$2,008,065 prize pool generated by the 4,478-entry field.

Event #62, the $2,500 No-Limit Hold'em, opened Tuesday with 312 players surviving Day 1 against a US$3.8 million prize pool and a projected first-place prize of US$555,198. Slovenia's Blaž Žerjav leads the bag list at 893,000, with names such as Czech high-stakes regular Martin Kabrhel, 2014 Main Event runner-up Martin Jacobson, Argentina's Damian Salas, Russia's Artur Martirosian, mixed-game specialist Calvin Anderson and Canadian-flag low-stakes-tournament regular Leo Margets all advancing through Day 1.

The Canadian summer, holding

The 2026 series Canadian-flag tally remains at three bracelets and US$2,395,570 in gold combined. Below the bracelets, Negreanu's PPC exit caps a series of mid-tier finishes for him that has produced one cash for US$69,531; Livingston's Day 3 stack does not yet score a notable cash on its own but represents the deepest still-active Canadian run in any open bracelet event currently in progress. Total notable Canadian cashes for the 2026 summer hold at approximately US$2,870,809 ahead of the Wednesday and Thursday final-table sessions.

What to watch Wednesday

Three threads to follow Wednesday. Event #60, the $50,000 Poker Players Championship, restarts at 1 p.m. local time at the Horseshoe with thirty-nine players returning. Day 3 is scheduled to narrow the field to the official final twelve, with Day 4 (Thursday) playing down to the final five and Day 5 (Friday) deciding the title. Event #50, the $1,500 Millionaire Maker, plays its final-five session Wednesday after Tuesday's final five was reached, and is expected to crown a millionaire on Wednesday night or Thursday morning. Event #63, the $1,000 Mystery Millions, runs Day 1B with mass-field volume that should clear ten thousand cumulative entries by close of registration on Friday.

Ontario players watching from home can follow the live updates on PokerNews, WSOP.com and the PokerGO live stream. The regulated Ontario market overview is on the best poker sites in Ontario page; the WSOP Super Circuit Canada qualifiers operating in August are covered on the GGPoker Ontario page; and the four-week tournament guide is at Ontario poker tournament schedule.

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