WSOP Main Event Day 3 Fires with 3,294 Survivors as Kristen Foxen Carries the Canadian Torch and Daniel Negreanu Busts on AQ Versus AK

By Alex Drummond, Editor-in-Chief · July 8, 2026 · Fact-checked by Maya Chen

Day 3 of the 2026 World Series of Poker Main Event opened Wednesday at 2 p.m. Eastern with all 3,294 remaining players combined into a single 330-table configuration across the Amazon, Mothership, Brasilia and Pavilion rooms at Horseshoe Las Vegas. It is the largest single Day 3 field in Main Event history, and the last day on which the entire remaining field will play together before Thursday's money bubble draws the tournament into its cash-payout phase.

The prize pool sits at a locked US$85,634,400. The top 1,382 finishers, roughly 15 per cent of the field, will cash for at least the US$15,000 min-cash. The champion, to be crowned on Saturday, July 18, will take home a flat US$10 million, one of only a handful of occasions in Main Event history that the first prize has been fixed rather than allowed to float with the field.

Five 90-minute levels are on the docket for Day 3. Blinds resume at 500/1,000 with a 1,000 big-blind ante and escalate to 3,000/6,000 by the last level. Average starting stack is approximately 254,000 chips, or 254 big blinds. The money bubble is projected to burst late in Level 5, which would push into Thursday morning's play.

The Foxens Both Return

The largest Canadian-linked story of the day is that both Alex and Kristen Foxen advanced through their Day 1 and Day 2 flights and take their seats on Day 3. This is a correction to earlier reporting on this site that indicated Kristen Foxen had elected not to enter the Main Event; on further verification of ESPN and PokerNews chip-count records, she registered for Day 1D, bagged 99,800 chips at the end of that flight, and finished Day 2D with 143,000. Our earlier account was in error and has been noted in the corrections log.

Alex Foxen, the WSOP Player of the Year front-runner with nine cashes, one bracelet, four other final tables and a third-place finish in the US$25,000 Heads-Up Championship on this year's ledger, sits considerably deeper at 493,500 chips heading into Day 3, one of the largest 25 stacks in the field. Poker.org's Dave Woods documented his marquee Day 2D hand on the featured table: a three-way pot with Vinh Nguyen and Yoshitaka Hayasaki in which Nguyen shoved his remaining 64,600 as a squeeze, Foxen called, and Nguyen went to the exit muttering, "That's a really good call, how do you make that call? That's a sick call man, I don't know how you did it." Foxen was above 400,000 chips after the hand.

Kristen Foxen, the Ottawa-born four-time bracelet winner and current world number one on the women's all-time money list, returns to Day 3 in the low bottom quartile at 143,000, or 143 big blinds, essentially the average stack after Day 2. Her 2026 series remains the strongest Canadian bracelet campaign of the summer: two bracelets already logged, in the US$25,000 High Roller and the US$1,000 Super Turbo Bounty, worth a combined US$2.1 million. A deep Main Event run would push her into the WSOP Player of the Year conversation and add to her ranking on the women's all-time money list, on which she sits above Vanessa Selbst.

Negreanu Runs AQ Into AK

Not every Canadian story runs in the win column. Daniel Negreanu, whose eighth WSOP bracelet in the US$100,000 PLO High Roller on July 2 (US$2,257,718 first prize; heads-up defeat of Artur Martirosian) has already been logged as the largest single Canadian cash of this year's series, exited the Main Event on Day 2D in a cooler.

Negreanu began Day 2 short, at 54,100 chips, having laboured through Day 1B on July 4. He dropped to 22,000 in the opening level of Day 2D before mounting a two-double-up recovery against Jameel Harris, first cracking pocket queens with pocket sixes, then rebound-doubling with A-K into pocket jacks after flopping an ace. That put him back near 70,000. He got his stack in against Darren Rabinowitz with A-Q offsuit; Rabinowitz had A-K offsuit. The board offered no help. "Alright, GG," Negreanu said as he stood up. "Good luck, do something with my chips."

Negreanu proceeded immediately to the US$600 Ultra Stack event to chase Fantasy Freeroll points, according to Poker.org's Woods. His US$25,000 Fantasy Freeroll team currently leads the summer-long league standing with 16 bracelet events still to play. His 2026 Main Event exit does not diminish what has been an excellent summer for him personally, but it removes the tournament's single largest Canadian narrative from the frame heading into Day 3.

Ivey and Kenney Also Down

Two of the day's most-anticipated late registrations, Phil Ivey and Bryn Kenney, both entered on the Day 2D window and both busted within the first two levels. Neither has issued a public comment, though Poker.org observed drily that "Phil Ivey won't be winning the big one this year." Also gone from Day 2D: Amit Agarwal (bluff called with just over 100,000 remaining), Isai Scheinberg (ran into Athanasios Polychronopoulos's better hand), Jason Koon (out early in his 2026 campaign), Martin Kabrhel (bust late in the day, courtesy of Colombia's Farid Jattin) and Gus Hansen. Nick Schulman and Liv Boeree also failed to advance.

Rossitto, Fenster and Schumacher at the Top

Michael Rossitto's 770,500-chip Day 2D bag is the largest stack in the room by unofficial count, ahead of Jeff Fenster (747,000), Yannick Schumacher of Germany (738,000), Robert Gill (728,500) and Joseph Baghdalian (705,000). Alternate reporting from SpadePoker and Eurosport lists France's Lorenzo Lavis at 808,000, which would place him at the top of the leaderboard when official counts are locked Wednesday morning. Argentina's Gaspar Fernandez leads the Day 2ABC contingent at 754,000, and depending on which of the alternate counts is confirmed, either Lavis or Rossitto will sit at the outright top when Day 3 chip counts stabilise after the first orbit.

The Past Champions Corner

Seven past Main Event winners return to Day 3, an unusually deep contingent. John Cynn, the 2018 champion, leads them all at 403,000. Ryan Riess (2013) is next at 395,000. Hossein Ensan (2019) is at 236,600. Chris Moneymaker (2003, whose live-tournament career effectively catalysed the poker boom) sits at 221,000. Joe Hachem (2005) is at 135,000. Joe McKeehen (2015) is at 102,500. Scott Blumstein (2017) starts the shortest of the group, at 21,800 chips (roughly 21 big blinds at the opening level). Defending champion Michael Mizrachi, whose Cinderella story has driven the tournament's most compelling narrative, returns to Day 3 with the 202,500 chips he bagged at the end of Day 2ABC.

Ontario Coverage and Watch Guides

ESPN's over-the-air broadcast begins with Day 5 coverage on Sunday, July 12, but Day 3 gets its first meaningful streaming exposure through ESPN+ starting at 8 p.m. Eastern. PokerGO Plus subscribers get the deepest coverage, with feature-table streams from all four ESPN broadcast tables running with a 30-minute delay and the hole-card-free Live LIVE feed from the Amazon Room running continuously.

The GGPoker Canada editorial team is running an Ontario-community watch party at their Bay Street office in Toronto for the duration of Day 3 and Day 4, with capacity for approximately 60 attendees. The Vancouver-born Twitch personality Kevin Martin, who has been posting vlogs from Las Vegas but has not entered the Main Event this year, is also expected to co-stream sections of the day.

The Money Bubble

Between Level 5 tonight and Level 1 tomorrow morning, the tournament will hit its money bubble at 1,382 finishers. The 1,382nd-place finisher will collect US$15,000; from there, the payout curve steepens sharply. The 400th-place finisher will collect approximately US$50,000. The 100th-place finisher will collect approximately US$150,000. The final table's short stack, ninth place, is guaranteed a minimum of US$1 million. Second place will collect approximately US$7 million. The champion, the fixed US$10 million.

Play concludes at approximately 2 a.m. Eastern Thursday morning, or after the completion of Level 5, whichever comes first. Table draws for the money-bubble day will be published in the WSOP LIVE app overnight.

How Ontario Players Follow Along

For readers in Ontario, the fastest way to follow live chip counts, table draws and payouts is through the WSOP LIVE app, which mirrors the tournament staff's authoritative database and does not require a wager or account signup. Free-to-follow secondary coverage runs through PokerNews's live blog, Poker.org's Twitter and Substack feeds, and the CardsChat forum. For those preferring television coverage, the ESPN+ Day 3 stream from 8 p.m. Eastern is the earliest broadcast option; the over-the-air ESPN linear-television slots begin with Day 5 on Sunday.

Ontario audiences interested in the qualifier path into future Main Events will find GGPoker Ontario, PokerStars Ontario and BetMGM Poker all running satellite ladders across the balance of 2026. Our Ontario WSOP satellites hub keeps that calendar up to date. iGaming Ontario, the province's stand-alone Crown agency, permits satellite promotions under its Registrar's Standards for Internet Gaming provided the eligibility rules and package terms are clearly disclosed. Players must be 19 and physically located in Ontario to register on any of those platforms.

Deeper coverage of Wednesday's action will follow overnight and into Thursday, when the money bubble is expected to burst. Our next update lands with the Thursday morning news cycle.

Correction: An earlier OntarioPoker.com article, published July 8 at 9 a.m. Eastern, stated that Kristen Foxen had not entered the 2026 WSOP Main Event. That statement was incorrect. Ms. Foxen registered for Day 1D, bagged 99,800 chips, and returned to Day 2D on Tuesday, ending the day with 143,000. The earlier article and corrections log have both been updated.

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