WSOP-C Calgary Kicks of 2025 in Style

Ontario’s Manish “Bubs” Ralh was the big winner at the end of the WSOP-C Calgary January 2025 after he crushed heads up of the Main Event for more than $310k but that was hardly the only story to emerge from the two weeks of poker. It was the biggest Circuit Calgary event ever, at least in two major metrics, and two players managed to record 8 cashes each in the 17-event series.

That 17-event schedule was one of the ways this was the biggest ever with previous editions of the series topping out at 16 events. This series also recorded the most entries of any Calgary Circuit event with the total entries closing in on 10,000.

With just shy of $5.75 million in prizes awarded during the January tilt, it wasn’t the biggest WSOP-C Cal to date by that metric — that honor still rests with Jan 2024’s total of almost $5.81 million but, significantly, more than 9,500 entries for 2025 capped the 2024 entry total by more than 100.

Main Event Ring Heads East

The big winner from the series was Manish “Bubs” Ralh for taking down the Main Event. More than one-third of the total prizes for the series were locked up in Main Event prizes with more than $2 million on offer to players who made Day 2 or cashed late on Day 1. One trend that has been fairly consistent throughout the run of WSOP-C Calgary has been local Main Event winners.

Coming into this series, the Main Event ring in Calgary had stayed in Alberta for 6 of the 7 series to date. The only exception to the Alberta-wins rule was May 2024 when Nicholas Teeuwen broke the streak to take the first ring out of province.

In Aug 2024, local hero Alex Liu came back with a dominating endgame performance to recapture the title for Alberta, but in 2025, “Bubs” Ralh has stolen the ring away again, taking it back to Ontario once again. Of the 8 Main Events run in Calgary so far, 6 rings have stayed here in Alberta while 2 have traveled east to Ontario with the rest of Canada still waiting to book a Calgary Main title.

Cash Crushers

There were two players who booked an astonishing 8 cashes during the recent WSOP-C Clagary event. Youssef Hmama and Julius Roque, both of whom are previous ring winners in Calgary, managed to pull cashing performances from 8 different events while Edmonton’s Colten Yamagishi was just shy of that mark as the only player on 7 cashes for the series. Four players, David Kumar, Andy Truong, Ghislaine Johnson, and Marc-Andre Kudjick-Paquin, managed to cash in six events.

There were 13 players on five cashes this time around, including serial ring winner Paul Sokoloff, the dynamic duo of Shane Brotherwood and Graham Lupton, recent PPT Main Event winner Ryan Cairns, Mal Hagan, and Greg “Greg Goes All In” Liow. While there were quite a few serial cashers in this year’s edition, it was a rare series where there were no double-ring winners — some players bagged rings to add to their totals, but every event in the series this time was won by a different player.

First Timers

There were a few first-time ring winners in the crowd this time around. Perhaps the most high-profile of the lot was Jordan Banfield. Banfield, who is sponsored by WPT Global, does most of his volume online with much of it broadcast live on his Twitch channel, but lately he’s been making a push for live results in local tournaments.

His early live results weren’t indicative of his skill levels, but in Nov of 2024 at the Deerfoot Inn & Casino Fall Super Stack 2024, he broke through with two wins. Those wins didn’t include jewelry, however, but he rectified that small oversight in this past Circuit series with a win in Event #3: $400 Black Chip Bounty.

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Malm Adds a Ring

Other first-timers in this series included two local players who ran very hot in 2024. Michael Malm broke through for his first Circuit ring in the two-day $1k just weeks after he was confirmed as the 2024 Alberta Poker Index Player of the Year. Malm already has a bracelet in his collection from 2013, but he was on fire in 2024 with five wins in local tournaments between Aug and Dec.

When the dust settled on the API race for 2024, Malm crushed the competition with second-place Weston Pring, no slouch himself with two cards, miles back. Malm finished the year with 40% more points than Pring after cashing nearly every game he touched in the latter part of 2024 and he’s made a stellar start to the 2025 race.

Panas Produces; Singleton & Kennedy Break Through

Tyler Panas was another player coming off a stellar 2024 who put in a ring-winning performance for the first time to start 2025. Panas broke onto the local scene with a huge year, recording his first Hendon Mob cash in Jan 2024 at WSOP-C with a modest cash in the Main Event, then proceeding to find the cash cage in 13 more events last year. He’s started 2025 on a tear as well, with two cashes, including the ring.

Curtis Singleton was, by his own admission, a bit of an unlikely winner this series. He took down the $400 Monster Stack for almost $70k (47,520 USD after conversion) for not just his first Circuit ring, but also his first live poker win. While Singleton’s Hendon page is littered with other cashes, he’d never made it to the top spot before this series. The win also represented nearly 3x his previous lifetime earnings so it was a huge win for the Calgary player.

Another player with a breakthrough win was Darren Kennedy, founder of BC’s grassroots Die Hard Poker League (DHPL). Kennedy is no stranger to the winner’s circle, with the Flip & Go ring marking his 7th win on the live felt, but this was his biggest live win in terms of stature and money, though it only ranks #7 on his all-time cash list.

In the winners’ photo, Kennedy posed with many of the DHPL crew that joined him on the trip to Calgary. The whole point of the DHPL, which has been running an annual league since the mid-2000s, was originally to help Kennedy find poker-obsessed friends to take a summer trip to Las Vegas with him, and the league was structured with Main Event packages for winners.

That has now evolved to include things like WSOP-C Calgary, with many league members coming to Calgary this time around and doing quite well in the process. The cash lists for the series are littered with DHPL players and Kennedy shared the Flip & Go final table with several of them.

Saturday Night was Ladies Night

Anne Ngo was another first-timer from this series and another case of a player’s first live win coming with a coveted Circuit ring. And she had to face down a juggernaut to do it.

Coming into this game, Jenelle Exner had won the last two Ladies events and was looking to make it three in a row. She came very close, ultimately bowing out in third in a crazy hand. It was a pair-over-pair cooler that saw her in with the best pair. Ivanna Yatsiuk flopped a set of sevens on a board that made Exner open-ended with her eights on top. That straight came in on the turn, but in a hand where the odds flipped on every street, the river paired to give Yatsiuk the boat.

That left Ngo battling with Yatsiuk heads up for the title. The night ended quickly when Ngo flushed out to crack aces with running clubs. Poker.Pro would also like to extend thanks again to Alek Gillies for stepping up at short notice to cover the game.

WSOP-C Calgary Continues to Grow

When the WSOP-C first hit Calgary in 2022, it announced its presence immediately with the biggest tournament series in Alberta history, including the biggest prize pool in provincial history with the Main Event. Year over year, that success has just grown.

In Jan of 2022, the series got a record $3.3 million in total prizes with 6.5k entries. By Jan 2023, that was up to $5.3 million with almost 7,500 entries.

2024 saw another increase with the biggest prizes to date at almost $5.81 million coming from almost 9,500 entries. 2025 beat that entry figure, crossing 9,500 for the first time while falling just shy of the prize total at $5.74 million.

Summary of WSOP-C Cal Jan 2025 Events