The Muck · The Muck Daily ★ Satire Mode
September 08, 2026
Daily Brief
Day 003 - The Home Ice Edition
The largest prize pool in the history of the WSOP Circuit is sitting in a card room in Kahnawake, Quebec, and Canadians hold most of it. A CA$5,000 Main Event that guaranteed CA$10 million drew 2,844 entries and made CA$13,082,400, and thirteen of the top twenty stacks going into Day 3 carried a maple leaf. The WSOP marked the occasion by announcing two entirely different festivals in the Czech Republic and the Dominican Republic. In Jacksonville, a WPT Championship that has shrunk in each of the last three years produced the best sequence of the day from a player who had less than two big blinds left. And PokerStars opened a series that will crown 350 world champions, the first meaningful one of which paid a World Series Main Event winner $33,250.
Story 01 of 4
The Biggest Prize Pool in WSOP Circuit History Is in Quebec and the Locals Are Not Sharing
What happenedLate registration closed on the CA$5,000 WSOP Super Circuit Canada Main Event at Playground in Kahnawake with 2,844 entries and a prize pool of CA$13,082,400, which is CA$3,082,400 past a guarantee that was already the largest ever offered in a Canadian poker tournament. Day 1A drew 851 entries by itself and Day 1C drew 830. Day 3 finished with Canadian Rayan Chamas on top of the displayed standings with 5,200,000 chips, up from the 825,000 he bagged out of Day 2A, which is a sixfold day and the kind of run that usually gets a nickname. William Givens of the United States is second on 4,000,000 and Jonathan Bussieres of Canada third on 3,400,000. Six of the ten leading stacks are Canadian. The man who led the field into Day 3, a Canadian listed by WSOP LIVE as Mario Lemieux, does not appear in the top ten that came out of it. Day 4 begins today, alongside a CA$25,000 Super High Roller starting at 3pm.
Why it mattersThis is the largest prize pool a WSOP Circuit Main Event has ever generated, and it happened at a venue whose previous single-tournament attendance record was 1,978. That record fell earlier in the same festival to a CA$500 Mini Main Event that drew 3,484 entries, an increase of about 76 percent, which suggests the thing Playground was short of all these years was not players but a large enough number written on a poster. Canada has now won seven of the eight Super Circuit Canada ring events whose winners have been published, and holds most of the chips in the ninth.
Story 02 of 4
The WSOP's Argument for Two New Festivals Is a Tournament That Has Not Finished Yet
What happenedAt 10am Eastern on Sunday, with the Super Circuit Canada Main Event three days from a winner, the WSOP announced two more Super Circuit festivals. WSOP Super Circuit KINGS runs at King's Casino in Rozvadov, Czech Republic from October 28 to November 11, 2026, with a EUR 3,000 Main Event carrying a EUR 2,000,000 guarantee. WSOP Super Circuit LATAM debuts at Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic from January 24 to February 2, 2027, with a $3,500 Main Event and a $2,000,000 guarantee. The announcement cited Canada throughout as proof the format works, describing the still-running Main Event as having established a new benchmark as the largest poker tournament in Canadian history. The WSOP news index has published nothing about how that tournament is actually going since September 3.
Why it mattersPunta Cana has never hosted an official WSOP event, and King's lost WSOP Europe to Prague this year and is getting a Super Circuit as the consolation. Both new Main Events guarantee about a seventh of what the Canadian one did, which is either a sensible reading of two untested markets or an admission that the CA$10 million number was the entire trick. The Circuit has spent a decade as the WSOP's regional feeder and is now a brand with international expansion plans and a press cadence to match.
Story 03 of 4
Kelly Slay Had Less Than Two Big Blinds Left. Three Hands Later She Had Thirty-Two.
What happenedKelly Slay was down to under two big blinds on Day 2 of the WPT bestbet Scramble Championship in Jacksonville. She tripled up under the gun with jack of clubs and three of clubs, flopping top pair. The next hand she moved in from the big blind with ace of spades and seven of hearts against ace of clubs and ten of diamonds, was dominated, flopped trip sevens and turned a full house. The hand after that she shoved the small blind with two black fives, got called by Justin Zaki holding king of hearts and jack of hearts, and turned a set. That put her on 388,000. She later moved all in for 364,000 on an eight, six, five flop against Blake Ellinghaus, who folded, and she bagged 490,000. Twenty-one players return today from a field of 294 entries and a $1,337,700 prize pool, led by Caleb Powell on 1,785,000. First place is $294,900, of which $10,400 is a ticket to a different tournament.
Why it mattersThe 294 entries are the third straight annual decline at what is one of the WPT's most established American stops. The same event drew 361 in 2024 and 327 in 2025, so the field has lost about a fifth of itself in two years while the $1 million guarantee held and the prize pool cleared it by $337,700. The tour has spent the year announcing new festivals in Cyprus, Cambodia, Australia, Korea and Texas, and the one running right now in Florida is smaller than it was the last two times.
Story 04 of 4
PokerStars Will Crown 350 World Champions This Month. The First Notable One Paid $33,250.
What happenedEspen Jorstad won WCOOP 02-H, the $1,050 PKO Warm-Up, on September 7 under the alias SamSolverel. He went into heads-up play against the Finnish player realsuhisjii facing a four to one chip deficit, closed it in a single hand by rivering a straight, and finished it by three-betting ace-king and firing three barrels into a rivered two pair. The 154-entry field produced a $154,000 base prize pool. Jorstad's $33,250 was $14,359 in prize money and $18,891 in bounties, which is to say most of what he won for winning was for knocking people out. It is his third WCOOP title, after 2023 and 2024, and he is the 2022 WSOP Main Event champion from a field of 8,663.
Why it mattersThe 25th WCOOP runs 121 numbered events across 350 individual tournaments, and PokerStars is giving a trophy to the winner of every single one, so 350 people will be world champions of online poker by September 30. Total guarantees are around $40 million, down from the $65 million the 2025 series opened with, and the $10,300 NLHE Championship now guarantees $2.5 million where it used to guarantee $5 million. Last year's series paid out nearly $74 million from 763,364 entries, so the guarantees were never the binding constraint. Halving the headline number on the flagship event and handing out 350 trophies are two ways of answering the same question.
Three titles decided since the last brief, on three continents, for three wildly different numbers.
Beat fellow Canadian Jonathan Brazeau heads-up. Canada swept the top five.
Third WCOOP title. Came back from a four to one heads-up deficit.
Canadians took eight of the top twelve spots.
Two live final stretches, and in both of them the chip leader gained most of it in a single day.
Jacksonville lost ten players in the last two levels of Day 2, all of them for five figures.
Ran into Samuel Rosen's ace-three of diamonds, which paired aces.
Eliminated by Caleb Powell.
Eliminated by Hugh Membrino.
Held a four to one heads-up lead over Jorstad and lost it in one hand.
Leads on 3,181 points at the close of Montenegro, 664 clear of Isaac Haxton. Jeju II is the last festival that can move it, and he has not cashed there yet.
Sat 16th on 1,613 points before winning Event 2 on Saturday. His new position has not posted.
Seven of the eight published ring winners at Playground are Canadian, and Canadians held thirteen of the top twenty Main Event stacks entering Day 3.
Three, in 2023, 2024 and 2026. Three weeks of schedule left to make it four.
Stops with cards in the air on this date, straight off the WSOP and WPT calendars.