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Samuel Chartier Wins MSPT Canadian Poker Championship as Canadians Dominate Playground

15 Oct 2026

Samantha Doyle 15 Oct 2026

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Samuel Chartier won the MSPT Canadian Poker Championship Main Event, earning C$175,000.
Canadian players dominated the series, taking top spots in all major events.
Benjamin Chen and Tomas Larivee Magni claimed titles in the High Roller and Opening Mega Stack.

Samuel Chartier Wins MSPT Canadian Poker Championship

The MSPT Canadian Poker Championship has its second champion in the books and the trophy did not have far to travel.

Montreal’s Samuel Chartier won the C$1,150 Main Event at Playground, taking down an 809-entry field for C$175,000. His victory was the cherry on top of the festival where Canadian players picked up most of the titles throughout the October 1–12 series.

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Samuel Chartier Wins C$175,000 Main Event

Chartier was hardly the obvious frontrunner when the four starting flights were complete.

He advanced from Day 1B with 271,000 chips. By comparison, Pascal Gregoire entered the combined Day 2 with 1,183,000, while Guillaume Charbonneau sat just behind him on 1,172,000. In total, 91 players returned from the 809 entries to contest the C$1 million prize pool, leaving plenty of work between Chartier and the trophy.

By the end of it, however, the Montreal player had passed everyone. Chartier collected C$175,000 for first place, while Vaughan, Ontario's Adil Morkos finished runner-up for C$124,000. Mohamed Kechiche, also listed from Montreal, rounded out the podium for C$80,150.

Place	Player	Prize
1	Samuel Chartier	C$175,000
2	Adil Morkos	C$124,000
3	Mohamed Kechiche	C$80,150
4	Yanis Philippe Mouddakir	C$58,000
5	Anas Slaoui	C$45,000
6	Alec Brandstatter	C$36,000
7	Elie Kortbawi	C$28,000
8	Pierre-Paul Paulin	C$22,000
9	Nassim-Loic Hafici	C$17,500
10	Pascal Gregoire	C$14,500

Chartier also picked up the C$3,500 MSPT Championship seat added to first place.

For a player with Chartier's résumé, the win can hardly be characterized as a breakthrough. If you were to look up his Hendon Mob records, you would see that the Montreal pro has more than US$3.4 million in live tournament earnings, while his 2026 results at Playground already included a C$51,020 victory in the Summer Million C$2,500 Mega Stack High Roller in July.

This win does, however, give him a particularly Canadian title to add to his growing collection.

Benjamin Chen Takes the C$2,200 High Roller

Ontario had already landed one of the festival's biggest side-event titles before the Main Event reached its final weekend.

Benjamin Chen Wins C$2,200 Mega Stack High Roller

Benjamin Chen of Caledon topped the C$2,200 Mega Stack High Roller, overcoming 79 entries to collect C$50,000 and his first MSPT Gold Card. Santiago Plante finished second for C$32,000, while Boyd Donald O'Neill took C$21,000 in third.

There was also a familiar name a little further down the payout list: Chartier finished seventh for C$6,500.So before winning the Main Event, Chartier had already reached the final table of the second-largest buy-in tournament on the schedule. Not a bad warm-up.

Tomas Larivee Magni Tops 1,080-Entry Opener

If the Main Event supplied the biggest prize, Event #1 supplied the biggest field.

Tomas Larivee Magni Wins C$300 Mega Stack

The C$300 Mega Stack drew 1,080 entries across its starting flights, eventually ending with Tomas Larivee Magni of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce taking first place and C$42,000. Marie-Josee Duguay finished runner-up for C$25,500, with Montreal's Tariq Javed earning C$18,900 for third.

That said, Canadians weren't just on the podium. Every player in the top 10 was listed by MSPT as Canadian, with Quebec communities including Outremont, Verdun, Lachine, Lasalle and Saint-Hippolyte represented at the final table.

Canadian Players Made Playground Their Own

While there was officially an international tour logo on the felt, the final results made it feel much more like a Canadian event.

Chartier, Morkos and Kechiche filled the Main Event podium, Chen won the High Roller and Larivee Magni beat more than 1,000 entries in the opener. Several other side events also went to players from Quebec and Ontario during the 12-day schedule.

Keep in mind that the Canadian Poker Championship only debuted in 2025 as MSPT's first ever championship outside the States. Just a year later, the series returned to Playground and once again produced what we could only call a local Canadian field at its best.

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