WSOP Super Circuit Canada Main Event Draws 2,844 Entries for a CA$13.08-Million Prize Pool, the Largest in Canadian Live Poker History; Canadians Mike Leah, Griffin Benger and Daniel Negreanu Carry Big Stacks into Day 3 at Playground

By Alex Drummond, Editor-in-Chief · September 7, 2026 · Fact-checked by Maya Chen

KAHNAWAKE, Quebec - The WSOP Super Circuit Canada Main Event at Playground Poker Club has closed registration with 2,844 entries against its CA$5,000 buy-in, producing a CA$13,082,400 aggregate prize pool. The tournament clears its CA$10-million guarantee by CA$3.08 million, or 30.8 per cent, and sets the largest single-event prize pool ever assembled by a Canadian live poker tournament, ahead of the previous record of CA$4.45 million posted at this same venue in September 2025. Poker.org's Dave Woods confirmed the aggregate numbers overnight Sunday, with all six starting flights and the three Day 2 flights now in the books. Day 3 fires Monday morning at 11:00 a.m. local time.

The scale of the field is not the top-line story on its own; it is what it does to Canadian tournament-poker history. Prior to Sunday night's overall entry-count reconciliation, Canadian live poker's largest single-tournament prize pool was CA$4,450,500, set at the September 2025 WSOP Circuit Playground Main Event won by Jacob Hobday of Pickering, Ontario. Playground's own record from that event has now been passed by 194 per cent inside twelve months. The next Canadian tournament to exceed CA$13 million will need a substantially larger field or a substantially larger buy-in; both, historically, are hard to engineer in a market that operates on a fenced provincial player pool and 25-per-cent-plus withholding for professionals.

The Numbers

Canadian Stacks Deep into Day 3

Six Canadians sit inside the tracked top thirteen returning stacks published by Poker.org, and three of them anchor the top four positions.

The top of the Day 3 leaderboard is anchored by Mike Leah, one of Canada's most decorated tournament professionals with a Hendon Mob live-tournament record showing US$15.5 million in career live earnings, a WSOP bracelet, and two WPT titles including the WPT Fallsview Poker Classic. Leah's 900,000 stack is roughly 40 big blinds through the Day 3 opening levels and sits at the top of the tracked leaderboard.

Griffin Benger, a former high-stakes cash-game specialist and 2016 WSOP Main Event ninth-place finisher (US$1,250,190), returns with 777,000 in second position on the tracked leaderboard. Daniel Negreanu, the Toronto-born Poker Hall of Famer and Canada's all-time money leader, returns with 535,000 (89 big blinds) after leading Day 1A on Wednesday. Negreanu opened this festival by performing the ceremonial "Shuffle Up and Deal" call for Flight A and has been on Playground's featured table throughout the flights.

Playground Breaks Another of Its Own Records

Day 1A of the Main Event drew 851 entries against a CA$5,000 buy-in, which is a Canadian single-flight record at that buy-in level. The comparison table for Playground itself, all at the same venue, tells the story: the September 2025 Main Event drew 1,978 entries across three flights at CA$2,500 buy-in (average 660 per flight); the April 2025 Main Event drew 1,414 entries across three flights at CA$2,000 buy-in (average 471 per flight); the March 2024 Main Event drew 1,503 entries across three flights at CA$1,700 buy-in (average 501 per flight). At CA$5,000 buy-in, 851 entries on a single flight is not a normal number.

Playground is now approximately CA$18.86 million in aggregate prize money generated across the WSOP Super Circuit Canada's first seven ring events plus Main Event, with twelve ring events still to play. The pre-Main-Event running total sat at approximately CA$5.78 million, per WSOP.com's own festival recap. Adding the Main Event's CA$13.08 million takes the aggregate to CA$18.86 million. The current Canadian record for total prize money generated by a poker series stands at CA$15.54 million, per WSOP.com, and the WSOP Super Circuit Canada has now cleared that threshold by CA$3.32 million with a third of the ring calendar and multiple side events still ahead.

Denis Cyr and the Ontario Reads

Denis Cyr, described by Poker.org as "leading Day 2C," is the current overall Day 2 chip leader heading into Day 3. WSOP.com has not yet published his exact stack. Cyr is not a household name on the international circuit, but his lead through the deepest and most volatile of the three Day 2 flights carries the standard implication - he outlasted 265 of 266 remaining Day 2C players when bagging was called at 15 per cent of the field. The stop point is standard for Circuit Main Events and produces a natural money-bubble transition into Day 3.

For Ontario-focused readers, the deep-stack Canadian names carry two Ontario ties: Mike Leah is Toronto-based, and Daniel Negreanu is Toronto-born. Griffin Benger is Toronto-based per his Hendon Mob record. Kevin Martin, at 124,000 chips, is Calgary-based and the province's most-recognizable Twitch streaming Canadian pro. Adam Todd, Sam Chartier and any of the province's other GGPoker Ontario satellite qualifiers who converted a CA$5-Stage-1-to-Final-Stage seat into a bag have not been named on Poker.org's Day 3 tracked list; the aggregate survivor count remains unpublished.

Payouts and What Comes Next

Payout schedules have not yet been published. The in-the-money threshold typically pays 15 per cent of the field at WSOP Circuit Main Events, which would translate to approximately 427 paid places from the 2,844-entry field. First-place cash on a CA$13.08-million prize pool at Playground's standard pay-out distribution would fall in the CA$1.6-million to CA$2.0-million band, though the exact figure will depend on Playground's chosen prize-pool distribution table and whether a final-table deal is struck. Poker.org has flagged that pay-outs will be announced shortly.

The Main Event's final table plays down on Wednesday, September 9, per the WSOP.com schedule. Twelve of the eighteen ring events on the WSOP Super Circuit Canada calendar remain to play through Saturday, September 12, including Event #8 (CA$2,000 NLH Deepstack Turbo, final table set with CA$100,000 up top per WSOP's X communication late Sunday), Event #9 (CA$400 NLH Big-O Bounty), and later high-roller and side events.

Related Coverage

• Stoffmaker extends Canadian streak to five rings; Meiners of USA ends it in Event #6 (September 5)
• Windsor's James Pillon wins WSOPC Super Circuit Canadian Championship for CA$335,000 (September 4)
• Frederic Moss wins WSOPC Mystery Bounty for CA$90,000
• Daniel Haim wins WSOPC Canada Mini Main for CA$185,000 from record 3,484 field
• Sebastien Proulx wins WSOPC Canada Kickoff for CA$56,000
• Ontario poker tournament schedule

Sources

• Poker.org - "Negreanu, Mizrachi take big stacks into WSOP Super Circuit Main Event Day 3", Dave Woods, September 6, 2026, for total entries (2,844), aggregate prize pool (CA$13,082,400), Day 1A entries (851), Day 1C entries (830), Day 2C leader (Denis Cyr), and the Day 3 tracked chip-count leaderboard.
• WSOP.com - "Read Up on Everything Happening at WSOP Super Circuit Canada", published September 3, 2026 and updated September 4, 2026, for previously published Canadian series prize-money record (CA$15.54 million) and pre-Main-Event aggregate prize pool (CA$5.78 million).
• WSOP.com Super Circuit Canada schedule and structure page, retrieved September 7, 2026.
• World Series of Poker verified X communications on Event #8 Deepstack Turbo final-table setting, published Sunday evening, September 6, 2026.