WSOP Circuit Canada at Playground: Seven Rings Down – Benjamin Chen Takes the C400MiniMainforC80,000

The last WSOP Circuit stop of the year in Canada has started the way Playground stops usually do: with huge crowds. In the first week in Kahnawake, the C400MiniMainEventbeatitsC500,000 guarantee and built a C$672,405 prize pool. On Sunday night, Benjamin Chen walked away with the biggest prize of the festival so far.

Chen beat fellow Canadian Christopher Glover heads-up and won C80,000,hisfirstWSOPCircuitringandaWSOPParadisepackage.Beforethisweek,CardPlayer’sdatabasecreditedhimwithaboutUS27,000 in live winnings from 18 cashes. This one win is worth more than his whole tournament career before it.

The festival runs until November 17 and has 18 ring events. Below is everything that has happened so far, and what the numbers tell you if you’re thinking of playing the second week.

Mini Main Final Table Results

We’ve added each player’s share of the prize pool and how many times they multiplied their C$400 buy-in.

Place	Player	Prize (CAD)	% of Pool	Buy-ins Won
1	Benjamin Chen	C$80,000	11.9%	200x
2	Christopher Glover	C$55,000	8.2%	137.5x
3	Carter Young	C$39,902	5.9%	99.8x
4	Dale Chalifoux	C$30,000	4.5%	75x
5	Stuart Taylor	C$23,000	3.4%	57.5x
6	Williams Carriere	C$17,500	2.6%	43.8x
7	Michael Korovine	C$13,000	1.9%	32.5x
8	Daniel Deluca	C$10,000	1.5%	25x
9	Mickael Thomas	C$8,000	1.2%	20x

Percentages and buy-in multiples are PokerClubGames calculations, rounded to one decimal place. Some outlets spell the winner’s first name “Benjaman”.

The nine finalists shared C$276,402, or about 41% of the prize pool. That’s a flatter payout than you’d see in a smaller field. With 197 places paid, a lot of the money goes to min-cashes and mid-range finishes, so the winner gets a smaller share. Chen’s 11.9% is well below the 19–22% that winners usually take in Circuit events with 300 to 450 entries.

Glover deserves credit too. Four days before finishing second here, he came ninth in the Event #4 Bounty for C$888. Two final tables in five days is the kind of consistency that usually turns into a ring sooner or later.

Where Your C$400 Actually Went

1,949 entries building C672,405worksouttoexactlyC345 per entry, or 86.25% of the buy-in. The other C$55 pays the house fee and staff costs. Players get a slightly better deal here than at many US Circuit stops, where about $330 of every $400 (82.5%) usually goes into the prize pool. Over a full festival, that difference adds up.

The Flight Data: Saturday Was Massive

Most results reports skip this part, but it’s the most useful if you’re planning a trip to Playground.

Flight	Date	Entries	Advanced	% of Field
Day 1A	Mon, Nov 2	171	18	8.8%
Day 1B	Tue, Nov 3	165	17	8.5%
Day 1C	Wed, Nov 4	191	20	9.8%
Day 1D	Thu, Nov 5	245	24	12.6%
Day 1E	Fri, Nov 6	409	41	21.0%
Day 1F	Sat, Nov 7	768	77	39.4%
Total		1,949	197	100%

Almost 40% of the whole field played the final Saturday flight. Friday and Saturday together made up just over 60% of entries, and each weekday flight was less than a third the size of Saturday’s.

About the top 10% advanced from every flight, so your chances of reaching Day 2 were roughly the same whichever day you played. The difference was the experience. Weekday flights had shorter registration lines and calmer tables, and if things went wrong you could re-enter on a later day. Recreational players travelling in will naturally pick Saturday. Grinders with a flexible schedule get a cleaner shot at bagging chips on a weekday.

All Seven Ring Winners So Far

#	Event	GTD	Entries	Prize Pool	Winner	Prize
1	C$400 NLH Mini Main Event	C$500,000	1,949	C$672,405	Benjamin Chen	C$80,000
2	C$400 NLH Progressive Bounty	C$50,000	239	C$56,081*	Gilbert Charles	C$8,000
3	C$400 NLH Mystery Bounty	C$50,000	247	C$57,959*	Michel Guerin	C$13,200
4	C$400 NLH Bounty	C$50,000	204	C$47,869*	Shailesh Patel	C$11,440
5	C$400 NLH Mega Stack	C$50,000	344	C$115,120	Yip Fung	C$25,415
7	C$1,000 NLH Progressive Bounty	C$160,000	243	C$113,760*	Mark Arbour	C$21,000
8	C$400 NLH Seniors (50+)	C$50,000	284	C$95,041	Giuseppe Galluzzo	C$20,900

*Bounty events: the prize pool and prize shown are regular prize money only. Bounties are paid separately, so the winners’ total earnings were higher. Published figures for the bounty events differ slightly between sources. Event #6 (Mystery Bounty) was still running at the time of writing.

A few things stand out:

• Bounty formats have taken over the early schedule. Four of the seven finished events used some kind of bounty. The listed prize doesn’t tell the full story, because winners of progressive knockouts usually collect a lot of bounty money on top.
• The Mega Stack was the best-value side event. Its 344 entries were roughly 40–70% more than the other C400sideeventsdrew,andYipFung’sC25,415 was the second-biggest first prize of the week. The 100,000-chip starting stack means more play, and that attracts recreational players.
• A familiar name won the Seniors event. Toronto’s Giuseppe Galluzzo was already a WSOP Circuit Main Event runner-up (New York, 2022, for US147,644)andhasdeeprunsattheWPTandEPT.Hebeat283opponents,andhisC20,900 was about 22% of the pool.
• The C$1,000 Progressive Bounty ended level. Mark Arbour and runner-up Robert Malinowski are both listed with C$21,000 in regular prize money, which suggests they made a heads-up deal. Arbour took the ring.

How This Mini Main Compares

Playground has become one of the biggest venues on the whole WSOP Circuit, and its numbers show it. It still holds the record for the largest WSOP Circuit Main Event prize pool: C4,450,500from1,978entriesinAugust2025.InSeptember2026ithostedthefirstWSOPSuperCircuitCanada,whichhadaC10 million guaranteed Main Event and a C$500 Mini Main that set a venue record with 3,484 entries.

Series	Buy-in	Entries	Notes
WSOP Super Circuit Canada (Aug–Sep 2026)	C$500	3,484	Venue record; won by Daniel Haim
WSOP Circuit Playground (Nov 2026)	C$400	1,949	C$672,405 pool; won by Benjamin Chen

At first glance, drawing just over half the Super Circuit’s numbers can look like a drop. It isn’t really one. The Super Circuit was a one-off headline series, and its heavily promoted C10MMainEventdrewplayersfromalloverNorthAmerica.ThisNovemberfestivalisaregularCircuitstop,thefourthWSOPseriesatthevenuethisyear,so1,949entriesinaC400 event is a very strong turnout. For comparison, Grand Victoria in Illinois, which runs at the same time, guaranteed only $250,000 for its $400 Mini Main.

Practical Takeaways for Players

• Big fields mean big swings. With 1,949 entries, even strong players will miss the money most of the time. Plan your bankroll for several bullets across different festivals, not one shot.
• The min-cash is small. C$850 is only just over two buy-ins. If you re-entered twice, a min-cash barely covers your costs. The real money starts around the last three tables.
• Use weekday flights as a backup. Local players who start early get a second chance: if you bust on Thursday, you can fire again on Friday or Saturday.
• Don’t judge bounty events by the listed prize. Check the bounty structure before you register. In progressive and mystery formats, bounties can make up close to half of the total money.

What’s Next at WSOP Circuit Playground

The busiest part of the festival is still to come. The C1,000Colossus(C600,000 guaranteed) runs its flights from November 9 to 11, alongside a C400MegaStackTurboandtheendoftheC400 Mystery Bounty.

After that comes the headline event, the C2,500No-Limit Hold’em Main Event.Ithas Day1flightson Thursday, Friday and Saturday (November 12–14)at11:00a.m.,50,000startingchipsandareportedC2.5 million guarantee. The second week also has a C600Pot-LimitOmahaevent,aC400 Ladies Event and a C$5,000 Mega Stack High Roller, and the festival ends on November 17. Full details are on the official WSOP Circuit Playground schedule page at wsop.com.

If the Mini Main is anything to go by, expect the Saturday Main Event flight to be packed.

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