The first WSOP Super Circuit Canada has closed the books with 14,784 entries and more than C$24.5 million awarded across 18 ring events, comfortably beating an already ambitious C$14 million in guarantees.
The final numbers from Playground in Kahnawake, Quebec put some serious weight behind the idea that Canadian live poker is enjoying a boom rather than a brief heater. The festival ran from August 26 to September 12, and its combined prize pools finished roughly C$10.5 million above the advertised guarantees.
That is a hefty overperformance for a debut Super Circuit stop. Poker Type looked at Canada’s growing poker boom earlier this month, and the completed Montreal numbers now provide the clearest evidence yet that demand at the top end of the country’s live tournament market remains extremely strong.
A C$12.7 Million Main Event Did the Heavy Lifting
The C$5,000 Main Event was always going to be the headline act. Its C$10 million guarantee was the biggest target on the schedule, yet 2,844 entries pushed the official prize pool to C$12,689,928 and made it the largest poker tournament prize pool ever staged in Canada.
Canadian Mayukh Chakraborty finished the job for C$1.5 million and his first WSOP Circuit ring. He beat fellow Canadian Benjamin Veenstra heads-up, while Jack Salter took third and four-time bracelet winner Chance Kornuth finished fourth. Jonathan Bussieres and Felipe Baraky also reached the final table after qualifying online through GGPoker for a combined C$300 in satellite entries, turning those tickets into C$500,000 and C$400,000 respectively.
Daniel Negreanu also returned home for the festival after Poker Type previewed his WSOP Super Circuit Canada appearance. The Canadian star made Day 4 of the Main Event before Kornuth sent him to the rail in 99th place for C$14,500. It was not another trophy for Kid Poker, but his run added a familiar face to a tournament that hardly needed help filling seats.
Records Fell Beyond the Main Event
The Main Event was only part of the story. The C$500 Mini Main Event attracted 3,484 entries across its starting flights, setting a new attendance record for a tournament at Playground and generating C$1,470,248 in prize money. For a C$500 event to pull almost 3,500 entries at a single venue says plenty about the depth of the local and travelling player pool.
Other events produced four-figure or near-four-figure fields too. The C$1,000 Mystery Bounty drew 1,194 entries for a C$1,036,571 prize pool, while the C$2,300 Super Circuit Canadian Championship attracted 996 entries and paid out just over C$2 million. The C$600 Ultra Stack added another 1,691 entries and C$861,141 to the festival totals.
| Event | Entries | Prize pool |
|---|---|---|
| C$5,000 Main Event | 2,844 | C$12,689,928 |
| C$500 Mini Main Event | 3,484 | C$1,470,248 |
| C$1,000 Mystery Bounty | 1,194 | C$1,036,571 |
| C$2,300 Canadian Championship | 996 | C$2,014,360 |
| C$600 Ultra Stack | 1,691 | C$861,141 |
The high rollers were smaller by design but still healthy. The C$14,000 GGMillion$ High Roller drew 134 entries for C$1,728,734, while the C$25,000 Super High Roller attracted 24 entries and paid C$558,720. Across all 18 ring events, the final reported total reached C$24,588,598 from 14,784 entries.
Online Qualifiers Made a Real Dent
One of the more interesting numbers came away from the physical tables. Around 18% of Main Event entries, approximately 507, qualified through GGPoker satellites. Those players went on to collect C$2,876,857 from the Main Event prize pool, with Bussieres and Baraky providing the two most dramatic examples of a cheap route turning into a life-changing score.
That matters beyond a nice satellite success story. A C$5,000 live buy-in is a substantial barrier for most recreational players, and feeding hundreds of qualifiers into the field helped the event clear its guarantee by a comfortable margin. Poker rooms have been using online-to-live funnels for years, but Montreal showed what the model can look like when the numbers really click.
Canada Gets Another WSOP Circuit Stop in November
The completed figures also put Poker Type’s earlier Super Circuit record report into perspective. Records were already falling before the Main Event began, but the final festival total ended up more than 70% above the C$14 million in advertised guarantees.
Playground will not have to wait long for more ring action. Another WSOP Circuit festival is scheduled for November 2 to 17 with 18 ring events and more than C$5.5 million guaranteed, including a C$2.5 million guaranteed Main Event. It is a smaller proposition than the Super Circuit, but after nearly 15,000 entries across this festival, nobody should be surprised if the Montreal tables are busy again.
The Super Circuit itself moves on to King’s Casino in Rozvadov from October 28 to November 11. For Canada, though, the bigger takeaway is already in the books: the country’s first Super Circuit did not merely scrape past its guarantees. It smashed them, set venue and national records, and gave the WSOP a fairly persuasive reason to keep Montreal high on the international schedule.
