By Alex Drummond, Editor-in-Chief · July 13, 2026 · Fact-checked by Maya Chen
The 2026 World Series of Poker Main Event has been trimmed to its final 21 players and, for the first time in nearly a decade, two Canadian passport holders return for what will effectively be the tournament's final table build day. Rami Hammoud, the Playground Poker Club regular from the Montreal-area Kahnawake circuit, bagged 41,500,000 chips at the end of Day 7 at Horseshoe Las Vegas, good for the second-largest stack in the room. Greg Mueller, the Vancouver-based three-time bracelet winner whose gold-medal career spans two decades, is also alive at 13,200,000. Play resumes today at 11 a.m. Pacific and will conclude when nine players remain, at which point each will lock up a minimum of US$1 million and return to Las Vegas on August 3 for the taped final table on ESPN.
Australia's Malcolm Trayner leads the field at 63,200,000 chips, or 105 big blinds at Monday's opening level of 300,000/600,000 with a 600,000 big-blind ante. Mr. Trayner, who won the Aussie Millions Main Event in Melbourne earlier this year, is on course to become the first player to win his home country's flagship poker championship and the WSOP Main Event in the same calendar year, a double no player has completed since the modern era's field sizes broke the seven-figure barrier.
Hammoud's Deep Run
Rami Hammoud, whose WSOP.com player profile shows 77 lifetime tournament cashes, five final tables and roughly US$292,000 in career earnings, is the least-heralded of the tournament's top three stacks. His resume has, until this month, been almost entirely built on the Playground Poker Club circuit in Kahnawake, Quebec. The most notable line on his ledger is a second-place finish in the March 2026 Playground WSOP Circuit US$1,000 Mystery Bounty for C$29,150. Prior to the current Main Event run, his largest single Las Vegas cash was US$4,063 in the 2025 WSOP US$1,500 Razz Championship.
His Day 7 stack of 41,500,000 is 143 times his previous largest cash. Under the tournament's payout ladder, he is already guaranteed at least US$325,000 (for finishing between 18th and 21st). A finish inside the final 10 unlocks US$750,000. A final-table appearance unlocks at least US$1 million. A win, worth US$10 million, would be the largest single-tournament cash ever collected by a Canadian passport holder, surpassing Jonathan Duhamel's 2010 US$8.9 million and Daniel Negreanu's US$4.8 million from a Big One for One Drop turbo years ago.
Mueller's Return
Greg Mueller's presence in the final 21 is a quieter but no less remarkable story. Mr. Mueller, who lives in Vancouver, won his first WSOP bracelet in the US$2,500 Deuce to Seven Draw Lowball in 2009 for US$460,841. He added a second bracelet later that same summer in the US$10,000 Seven Card Stud Championship (US$625,882) and a third in the 2018 US$10,000 H.O.R.S.E. Championship (US$425,347). His mixed-game acumen and consistent live-tournament presence over the past twenty years have made him one of the most respected Canadian pros of his generation, but he had never before made a Main Event Day 7. He returns to Day 8 short-stacked at 13,200,000 chips, or 22 big blinds, in what tournament staff describe as "guarded but playable" position.
The Full Final 21
| Rank | Player | Country | Chips | BB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Malcolm Trayner | Australia | 63,200,000 | 105 |
| 2 | Rami Hammoud | Canada | 41,500,000 | 69 |
| 3 | Lucas Jumalon | United States | 40,800,000 | 68 |
| 4 | Evagoras Evagorou | Cyprus | 38,200,000 | 64 |
| 5 | Will Givens | United States | 31,700,000 | 53 |
| 6 | Shaun Deeb | United States | 31,300,000 | 52 |
| 7 | Hossein Ensan | Germany | 29,700,000 | 50 |
| 8 | Thomas Clack | United Kingdom | 27,500,000 | 46 |
| 9 | Antonio Galiana | Spain | 27,200,000 | 45 |
| 10 | Mario Boos | France | 24,300,000 | 41 |
| 11 | Hanming Feng | United States | 24,000,000 | 40 |
| 12 | Daniel Savas | United States | 21,300,000 | 36 |
| 13 | Michael Gagliano | United States | 19,300,000 | 32 |
| 14 | Jamie Shaevel | United States | 17,100,000 | 29 |
| 15 | Romain Lewis | France | 15,800,000 | 26 |
| 16 | Lauri Saaskilahti | Finland | 15,600,000 | 26 |
| 17 | Brock Wilson | United States | 13,600,000 | 23 |
| 18 | Greg Mueller | Canada | 13,200,000 | 22 |
| 19 | Dylan Smith | United States | 9,600,000 | 16 |
| 20 | Todd Brunson | United States | 7,800,000 | 13 |
| 21 | Tolga Karakaya | Germany | 3,000,000 | 5 |
Trayner's Double, Brunson's Legacy, Ensan's Second Trophy
The narrative shape of the final 21 features three concurrent legacy storylines. Malcolm Trayner, if he wins tonight and then Vegas in August, would complete a modern-era Aussie Millions/WSOP Main Event double that has never been achieved. Todd Brunson, sitting on 7,800,000 chips or 13 big blinds, is chasing a family narrative fifty years after his father Doyle Brunson's second consecutive Main Event title in 1976 and 1977. Doyle passed in 2023, and any Brunson deep run in a Main Event since has carried an unresolved emotional weight. Hossein Ensan, the 2019 champion who bagged 29,700,000, is trying to become the first player to win two Main Events in the modern era (defined loosely as the post-Moneymaker Boom, since 2003). Only Johnny Chan (1987 and 1988) and previously Doyle Brunson (1976 and 1977) and Stu Ungar (1980, 1981 and 1997) have done it.
Shaun Deeb, the reigning WSOP Player of the Year sitting sixth in chips on 31,300,000, is in the deepest Main Event run of his career. Alex Foxen currently leads the 2026 Player-of-the-Year points board with Naoya Kihara second and Mr. Deeb third; a final-table appearance would deliver enough POY points to lock the second consecutive title for Mr. Deeb, provided he does not run into the field's deepest stacks first.
Sharma's Cinderella Ends
For Ontario audiences who watched Toronto's Dhiraj Sharma advance from a Day 2D seventh-place chip position to second overall by end of Day 5, the news is bittersweet. Mr. Sharma is not among the final 21, meaning his run ended somewhere between Days 6 and 7. Tournament staff did not publish an exact finishing position at press time, but Day 6 payouts started at US$150,000 for 62nd place and climbed steeply through the top 36. If Mr. Sharma exited within the top 30, his cash would be in the US$250,000 to US$400,000 range, easily the largest of his career.
The Toronto business analyst turned mid-stakes grinder entered the tournament with roughly US$400,000 in lifetime tournament earnings. His Main Event finish, wherever it settles, effectively doubles that at minimum. Coverage will update once tournament staff publishes his exact finishing position.
Editor's note on chronology: An earlier version of OntarioPoker.com's Day 5 recap on July 11 described Saturday, July 11 as a rest day and stated that Day 6 fired on Sunday, July 12. That was incorrect. Day 6 played on Saturday and reduced the field from 174 to 62; Day 7 played on Sunday and reduced the field to 21. There was no rest day between Day 5 and Day 8. The corrections log has been updated.
The Shot Clock Arrives
A procedural note worth logging: with 62 players returning for Day 7 on Sunday, WSOP tournament staff introduced a live shot clock, the first Main Event to feature one at this stage. The decision followed a well-publicised 15-minute tank on Saturday during Day 6 and other lower-profile examples in preceding days. Under the new rules, announced on the livestream by commentator Joe Stapleton, players have 20 seconds to act preflop and 30 seconds on each postflop street, along with six 30-second time-bank cards to use each day. The decision drew widespread debate. It also, arguably, contributed to the day's aggressive-play atmosphere: the field dropped from 62 to 21 during five 90-minute levels, a bigger reduction than tournament staff had modelled.
Payouts
| Place | Prize (USD) | Prize (CAD, at 1.36) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $10,000,000 | $13,600,000 |
| 2 | $6,000,000 | $8,160,000 |
| 3 | $3,750,000 | $5,100,000 |
| 4 | $2,750,000 | $3,740,000 |
| 5 | $2,250,000 | $3,060,000 |
| 6 | $1,750,000 | $2,380,000 |
| 7 | $1,500,000 | $2,040,000 |
| 8 | $1,250,000 | $1,700,000 |
| 9 | $1,000,000 | $1,360,000 |
| 10-11 | $750,000 | $1,020,000 |
| 12-13 | $510,000 | $693,600 |
| 14-17 | $410,475 | $558,246 |
| 18-21 | $325,000 | $442,000 |
Notable Day 7 Eliminations
Tyler Gaston, the Clark County public defender who bagged 21,000,000 as the Day 6 chip leader, exited in 36th place. Blake Barousse, second in chips overnight at 19,375,000, was eliminated after running into Rami Hammoud's two pair and finished 31st. Maxime Chilaud (27th, pocket fives holding for Hossein Ensan against jack-ten), Giuseppe Pantaleo (25th, ace-jack falling to pocket queens and ace-king in a three-way all-in) and Kyosuke Nagami (23rd, pocket jacks losing to Daniel Savas' pocket queens spiking a set-over-set turn) exited during the final orbits. The last player out was Zhao Liu, the American whose 10,150,000-chip Day 5 chip lead had made him one of the tournament's headline names; his 21st-place finish paid US$325,000.
Day 8 Structure
Play resumes Monday, July 13 at 11 a.m. Pacific / 2 p.m. Eastern. Blinds open at 300,000/600,000 with a 600,000 big-blind ante. Tournament staff have indicated the day will run until nine players remain, at which point action stops and the final nine return on Sunday, August 2 for the taped ESPN final table beginning Monday, August 3 through Wednesday, August 5. If nine is not reached by 11 p.m. Pacific, tournament staff may extend into Tuesday, per the modified 2026 schedule.
How Ontario Follows Today
ESPN+ carries a live feature-table stream today at 12 p.m. Pacific / 3 p.m. Eastern. PokerGO Plus subscribers can watch the hole-card feed with a 30-minute delay across all four featured tables. PokerNews's live blog updates hand-for-hand. WSOP.com's live app provides authoritative chip counts and elimination confirmations.
The GGPoker Canada watch party at their Bay Street office in Toronto is scheduled to run from 2 p.m. to midnight Eastern for Day 8, with capacity for approximately 60 attendees. Kevin Martin, the Vancouver-born Twitch personality who has been posting vlogs from Las Vegas without a tournament entry this year, is expected to co-stream from the Rio parking lot with running commentary on the two Canadian survivors.
The best poker sites in Ontario hub and our tournament schedule track the current qualifier calendar through GGPoker Ontario, PokerStars Ontario and BetMGM Poker. iGaming Ontario, the province's stand-alone Crown agency, permits live-event qualifier promotions provided eligibility terms are disclosed by the operator. Players must be 19 and physically located in Ontario to register.
Full coverage of Day 8 continues tomorrow morning with the confirmed final nine and, if either Canadian survives, the Ontario storyline heading into the August broadcast window.