By Alex Drummond, Editor-in-Chief · July 16, 2026 · Fact-checked by Maya Chen
Toronto's Victor Li has quietly built a case as one of Ontario's most interesting new professional poker players, and his sixth-place finish on the last full day of the 2026 World Series of Poker at Horseshoe Las Vegas made that case public. Mr. Li, the founder of the downtown-Toronto VClub private poker room, the Onova innovation consultancy and the PokerOS training-app startup, finished Event #99 (the US$5,000 8-Handed No-Limit Hold'em) for US$123,846 on Wednesday night. It is his largest career live-tournament cash, edging past his previous best of C$208,615 for a runner-up finish in the WSOP Circuit Deerfoot Main Event in Calgary last October.
The final table of Event #99 was, by the time Mr. Li reached it, dominated by a Phil Hellmuth pursuit story that Ontario audiences will have followed even without direct Canadian rooting interest. Mr. Hellmuth, the seventeen-time bracelet winner whose ongoing pursuit of an eighteenth has shaped the WSOP's editorial season for years, entered the final table with 10,000,000 chips and the outright chip lead. American Darren Rabinowitz, a one-time bracelet winner from Michigan chasing his second, defeated Mr. Hellmuth heads-up after a comeback that lasted approximately ninety minutes.
Full Final Table Payouts
| Place | Player | Country | Prize (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Darren Rabinowitz | United States | $695,256 |
| 2 | Phil Hellmuth | United States | $464,286 |
| 3 | Nicholas Palma | United States | $326,136 |
| 4 | Joshua Stewart | United Kingdom | $232,570 |
| 5 | Nick Pupillo | United States | $168,402 |
| 6 | Victor Li | Canada | $123,846 |
| 7 | Max Kingstone | United States | $92,527 |
| 8 | Connor Belcher | United States | $70,245 |
Field size 884 entries, prize pool US$4,066,400. Full payouts down through 133 places per WSOP.com.
Victor Li's Path
Mr. Li's 2026 series had been quiet through most of June. He was a mid-stakes tournament grinder rather than a bracelet-headlines target. His WSOP Circuit Deerfoot runner-up finish in October 2025 (C$208,615 for second) was his first widely-covered live result; his 45th-place finish in the 2022 WSOP Main Event delivered his previous largest one-off cash. Between those two performances he founded two poker-adjacent Toronto ventures. In April 2025 he launched VClub, a private downtown Toronto poker room that operates under a founders-and-investors membership model. That space has since expanded and now runs monthly no-stakes tournaments with 60-plus attendees and rotating high-stakes cash games with private-membership caps. In March 2025 he co-founded PokerOS, an AI-powered training platform that is currently in beta with a private waitlist.
Mr. Li did not run a public sponsorship campaign around his 2026 series entry, and did not confirm sponsorship arrangements at press time. He did, on his LinkedIn feed in late 2025, describe his transition from full-time entrepreneur to full-time professional poker player, calling it "the reset I needed after a decade of building." His declared goal for 2026 was to break the top 100 on Canada's Hendon Mob all-time earnings list. His Event #99 sixth-place finish, combined with his other 2026 cashes, brings his cumulative live-tournament earnings to approximately US$600,000, well within reach of the top-100 Canadian threshold.
Hellmuth's Bid
Phil Hellmuth's Event #99 run was, from his perspective, both a milestone-in-motion and a familiar frustration. His seventeenth bracelet came in the 2023 WSOP Event #72 (US$10,000 Super Turbo Bounty) for US$803,818. He has, in every year since, entered high-yield events with the expressed goal of chasing an eighteenth. His 2026 series delivered several deep runs including a top-25 finish in the US$10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Championship in early July, but he ended the summer without a new gold.
On Wednesday's Event #99 final table, Mr. Hellmuth had the outright chip lead six-handed. His two sons, Phillip III and Nicholas, were on the rail; both played full 2026 WSOP schedules. His lead expanded after the eliminations of Josh Norvock, Connor Belcher and Max Kingstone. From heads-up, however, Mr. Rabinowitz staged a series of well-timed three-bet shoves and, per PokerNews's Connor Richards, "reversed the count in a couple of orbits." The final hand did not deliver the eighteenth. "I gave it a shot," Mr. Hellmuth said at the rail after busting, in a moment captured on his son's Instagram feed. "The kids saw everything. That's what matters."
Wong Takes Event #100
The 2026 WSOP's ninety-ninth and one-hundredth events were both scheduled to conclude on Wednesday. Event #100, the US$1,000 Super Turbo No-Limit Hold'em, played from Wednesday afternoon through late Wednesday night. She Wong of the United States defeated Japan's Ryuta Nakai after a forty-five-minute heads-up battle to win his first career gold bracelet and US$216,286. The 1,699-entry field produced a US$1,571,875 prize pool. Mr. Wong told the stream after his win that he had "waited years for this moment"; his previous largest career cash had been US$34,000 in a Wynn Millions restart last year.
The 2026 Canadian Ledger, With One Event Left
Wednesday's action leaves the 2026 WSOP effectively closed, save for the Main Event's taped final table on August 3, 4 and 5. On the current bracelet ledger, Canadian passport holders finish with four confirmed bracelets: Kristen Foxen (US$25,000 High Roller, US$1,773,083 on June 8; US$1,000 Super Turbo Bounty on June 15); Christopher (Marc-Andre) Alcindor (US$1,500 Big O in June, US$387,110); and Daniel Negreanu (US$100,000 PLO High Roller, US$2,257,718 on July 2, his eighth career bracelet). Adding Mr. Li's Event #99 sixth-place finish to the notable-cashes list puts a Toronto-based professional player one line above the C$150,000 threshold for genuinely deep runs; his previous largest cash had been just below that.
| Canadian | 2026 Highlight Cash (USD) | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Kristen Foxen | $1,773,083 (bracelet) | US$25,000 High Roller Six-Max (June 8) |
| Daniel Negreanu | $2,257,718 (8th bracelet) | US$100,000 PLO High Roller (July 2) |
| Christopher Alcindor | $387,110 (bracelet) | US$1,500 Big O (June) |
| Alex Foxen | $594,246 (bracelet) | US$10,000 Super Turbo Bounty (June) |
| Rami Hammoud | Minimum $1,000,000 locked | Main Event final 9 (August 3-5) |
| Greg Mueller | Minimum $1,000,000 locked | Main Event final 9 (August 3-5) |
| Victor Li | $123,846 | Event #99 US$5,000 8-Handed (July 15-16) |
Ledger is not exhaustive of all Canadian cashes; smaller finishes for Deeb, Dvoress, Kabrhel, Michael Kotula and others have been logged in the WSOP.com database but are omitted here for space.
The Player of the Year Board at Close
The WSOP.com Player Standings (cash-based) as of Wednesday evening show Adrian Mateos leading on US$4,842,540 in bracelet-eligible earnings, one bracelet and eight cashes. Yuri Dzivielevski of Brazil sits sixth on US$3,134,283. Daniel Negreanu ranks seventh on US$2,977,868 in cash-based standings, with fifteen cashes and one bracelet. On the separate WSOP Player of the Year points leaderboard, American Alex Foxen leads with Japan's Naoya Kihara second and Shaun Deeb third.
The Main Event's August 3-5 final table will effectively determine the year-end POY conclusion for Deeb and Kihara. A Mueller or Hammoud win would deliver an eight-figure USD cash but would also, materially, redistribute the top of the POY board depending on how the final table plays.
What Ontario Follows Next
Between now and August 3, Ontario coverage centres on three storylines: any Canadian pro's public commentary or endorsement announcements around the pre-final-table period; PokerNews's daily pre-final-table build-up features; and the ESPN documentary rotation (scheduled to begin Monday, July 27, per network sources) that will spotlight all nine finalists in one-hour blocks. Mr. Li has not confirmed whether he will attend the final table in person as a spectator; his Toronto-based VClub will be running its scheduled monthly no-stakes tournament on August 4.
Provincial-market operators GGPoker Ontario, PokerStars Ontario and BetMGM Poker continue running qualifier ladders into the WSOP Super Circuit Canada event at Playground Poker in Kahnawake in August. iGaming Ontario, the province's stand-alone Crown agency, permits live-event qualifier promotions under the Registrar's Standards for Internet Gaming provided eligibility terms are clearly disclosed. Players must be 19 and physically located in Ontario to register.
Full coverage of the Main Event final table build resumes on this site during the last week of July as the pre-final-table narrative period gets underway.