Eelis Pärssinen Storms to WSOP $25K PLO Final Five Chip Lead as Foxen's Back-to-Back Bid Ends in Seventh and Negreanu Settles for 26th

By Alex Drummond, Editor-in-Chief · June 19, 2026 · Fact-checked by Maya Chen

Finland's Eelis Pärssinen bagged 35,225,000 chips at the end of Day 3 of the World Series of Poker's $25,000 Pot-Limit Omaha High Roller late Thursday night, taking a runaway chip lead into Friday's televised final five and ending the storyline that had defined the event for OntarioPoker's coverage all week.

Pärssinen, a 30-year-old Helsinki resident with one previous WSOP bracelet (the 2021 $5,000 No-Limit Hold'em / Pot-Limit Omaha event) and live earnings approaching US$18 million, doubled twice in the back half of Day 3, first by rivering the nut straight against Chongxian Yang and Barrett Threadgill in a three-way pot, and again with a set of sevens and a turned nut flush against Alex Foxen's overpair aces. The two doubles produced more than half of his final stack and left Foxen with less than a big blind. He was eliminated by Pärssinen shortly afterward in seventh place for US$267,993, ending the New Yorker's bid to win two open-buy-in WSOP bracelets within six days.

The Day 4 final five

The structural picture entering Day 4 is decisive. Pärssinen's 35,225,000 represents more than half of the 67,650,000 chips in play and is greater than the next four stacks combined. Levon Khachatryan, a New Jersey-based PLO regular, is the only realistic challenger at 50 big blinds. Aaron Mermelstein, Sergio Martinez Gonzalez and Jeremy Druckman sit on stacks of 7 to 13 big blinds, where a single bad flopped wrap eliminates them.

Day 4 resumes Friday at 2 p.m. Las Vegas time and is expected to play in front of the PokerGO cameras at the WSOP feature table. The first-place prize is US$2,161,056, with five locked at US$495,769 minimum. A win would be Pärssinen's second WSOP bracelet and would lift his live earnings inside the top three of all Finnish tournament players, behind Patrik Antonius and Sami Kelopuro.

The Foxen storyline closes

Foxen entered Day 3 as the chip leader, with 6,820,000 (136 big blinds) and seemingly clear running room. Within four hours he was below 20 big blinds, having lost a 26-big-blind pot to Pärssinen and a second double to Sergio Martinez Gonzalez on a board that paired the Spaniard's middle pair. The third Pärssinen double, which we described in the lead, sealed his elimination at 7th place for US$267,993.

The defeat ends an extraordinary nine-day stretch. Foxen had won Event #44, the $10,000 Super Turbo Bounty, on Sunday June 14 for US$594,246 and a fourth career bracelet. He then re-entered Event #47 the following morning, built the Day 1b chip lead, extended it through Day 2, and held it into the start of Day 3. The seventh-place finish still raises his 2026 WSOP cashes total to roughly US$862,000 and keeps him atop the WSOP Player of the Year race, with sufficient lead over second-placed Adrian Mateos to absorb a Main Event miss.

His wife, Kristen Foxen, born in St. Catharines, Ontario, and listed in WSOP reporting under the Canadian flag, remains the household's third bracelet winner of the 2026 series after her June 7 victory in Event #19 for US$1,773,083. The combined Foxen tally still sits at ten WSOP bracelets, the most of any married couple in WSOP history.

Negreanu's 26th-place finish

Daniel Negreanu finished Event #47 in 26th place for US$69,531, the minimum-cash payout. The result, his first WSOP cash of the 2026 series after registering for at least eleven bracelet events, is the deepest run of his live PLO career at a World Series of Poker and produces a payout that is roughly equivalent to his entry fee plus tax-adjusted travel costs. It also ends the most-followed Canadian PLO storyline of the summer.

Negreanu was eliminated by Foxen during Day 3, the same chip leader who had busted him from the $250,000 Super High Roller in 35th outside the money one week earlier. The Foxen-Negreanu sequence has been the principal subplot of Negreanu's 2026 summer. Poker.org described Foxen as Negreanu's "2026 WSOP nemesis" in its Wednesday breaking-news bulletin, and the description fits.

Negreanu told the Poker.org floor reporter before cards in the air on Day 3: "Twenty big blinds is heaps in PLO. They're not going to get these chips from me. We're going to be okay, we're going to go all the way." Two levels later he was on the rail.

Pärssinen, briefly

Pärssinen is not a household name in North American poker rooms but is one of the most accomplished European mixed-game and PLO professionals of the past decade. He plays predominantly online under the handle "EEE27" and has more than US$11 million in online tournament cashes since 2018. His live resume includes a runner-up finish at the 2023 EPT Prague €25,000 Single-Day High Roller, a fourth-place finish at the 2024 PCA $50,000 High Roller, and the 2021 WSOP bracelet referenced above. His tournament profile on Hendon Mob lists Helsinki as his home city.

Pärssinen has been a feature in the European high roller circuit for five years and is one of a small number of players, alongside Jorryt van Hoof, Niklas Astedt and Sami Kelopuro, who regularly enter $25,000-plus PLO events. His strength is the deep-stacked turn play that the WSOP $25K PLO HR structure rewards, and his stack of 88 big blinds at Day 4 start is precisely the territory in which his career edge has historically been highest.

The Canadian summer, mid-series

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 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo on June 6 for US$235,377. Kristen Foxen won Event #19 $25,000 High Roller on June 7 for US$1,773,083. Christopher Alcindor closed the eight-day 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. Orlando Moretti of Bolton, Ontario added US$64,992 with a sixth-place finish in the $800 Deepstack. Negreanu's locked US$69,531 from Event #47 lifts the Canadian notable-cash tally to roughly US$2,652,299 with two weeks of the schedule still to play before the WSOP Main Event opens on July 2.

The 2026 Player of the Year list now reads Foxen first, Mateos second, and Kristen Foxen third under the United States WSOP flag (the WSOP system tags players by their primary listed residence rather than nationality, which puts the household's Canadian-born side on the US line). Daniel Negreanu's POY rank remains outside the top fifty with his locked US$69,531 not significantly moving the needle.

What to watch Friday

Three storylines are worth tracking through the Friday final. First, whether Pärssinen can convert an 88-big-blind chip lead into a winning end. Wire-to-wire final-table runs in $25K PLO events are uncommon. Historical data from PokerGO Tour shows that chip leaders at five-handed in $25K PLO High Roller events convert to wins approximately 40 per cent of the time, against the 20 per cent baseline expected from random distribution at five handed. Pärssinen's lead, however, is materially greater than recent precedents, with the average five-handed chip leader in the format holding 35 to 45 per cent of chips in play. Pärssinen has 52 per cent.

Second, whether Levon Khachatryan can hold up as the second-largest stack and avoid a Pärssinen confrontation early. The two players will sit immediately to each other's right and left at the seven-handed final table, depending on seat draw, which guarantees that the largest pots of the day will run between them.

Third, whether the three short stacks can survive past the first ten or twelve hands without committing to a flip. Druckman, on seven big blinds, will be forced into a shove or fold posture on essentially every meaningful hand, and the structure offers no shelter at 200,000 / 400,000 blinds with a 400,000 big blind ante.

The Day 4 final is broadcast on PokerGO with no Ontario geo-block. Ontario players watching from home can monitor running text updates via PokerNews. Players interested in qualifying for the WSOP Super Circuit Canada satellites at Playground Montreal in August can review the GGPoker Ontario page; the regulated market overview is covered in the best poker sites in Ontario guide, and the tournament schedule covers the next four weeks of regulated guarantees.

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