With a single top button undone on his clean, white business shirt and an ever-present fanny pack around his waist, Naoya Kihara does not look like your typical WSOP poker player.
There’s no hoodie, no sunglasses or headphones. No NSFW t-shirt or limited edition sneakers.
And as we learned when we spoke with him earlier in the World Series, poker isn’t even his main gig. If he sometimes comes across as a full-time stock market trader from Tokyo, it’s for good reason — that’s how he earns a living.
But here’s the thing: this poker ‘side hustle’ of his is going kinda well.
A win in the $10K 2-7 Lowball Championship in early June was followed up just days later with another in the $10K Stud, for two bracelets and around $730K in winnings.
And it didn’t stop there. Kihara has since cashed in another seven events, including final tables in the $50K PLO High Roller and the $10K 2-7 Triple Draw Championship.
And now, as we enter the Autumn of the 2026 WSOP, in a week where the long-awaited Main Event will finally shuffle up and deal, Kihara is sitting in pole position to win yet another bracelet in a standout summer.
Brad Owen hunts bracelet #1
This time it’s the $2,500 Mixed Big Bet event, a mixed game rotation that focuses on pot-limit and no-limit variants such as Omaha, Big O, 5-card double draw and 2-7 triple draw.
388 players who like big bets and just can’t lie have swelled the prizepool here to $858,850, and Monday will see the last one standing awarded the $182,591 first prize.
And Kihara leads the final 13 players, with a stack twice the size of his closest rival’s.
That belongs to Matt Vengrin, one of several WSOP bracelet winners looking to put the brakes on Kihara’s runaway summer and bag a second World Series title of his own. Also in the hunt for more hardware are the likes of online/live legend Renan 'Internett93o' Bruschi, two-time WSOP winner Steve Billirakis and Scott Abrams.
Those among the 13 survivors looking to claim a first bracelet include the popular vlogger Brad Owen and 2024’s NAPT Las Vegas Main Event winner Nick Marchington, while Kihara’s Japanese compatriots Hiroyuki Noda and Ryuta Nakai have also made it through to the decisive final day.
A first Japanese Player of the Year?
Sunday’s Day 2 saw the field thinned down from 99, with the bubble bursting at 58 left as Australia’s James Obst hit the bricks in the last non-paying spot.
Once that money bubble popped a number of celebrated names followed Obst out the door, including Nacho Barbero, Patrick Leonard and Dan Smith. The four-figure scores they collected are unlikely to make much difference to their WSOP bankrolls, but it’s good to maintain winning ways.
Just ask Naoya Kihara.
The man from Tokyo is not the only double-bracelet winner of the series so far, and at the time of writing is lagging behind the likes of Alex Foxen, Nick Schulman and Benny Glaser in the race for WSOP Player of the Year (PoY).
But with an unruffled focus and a clockwork consistency, he keeps on chalking up the results. He sits in the top 10 in the PoY race, and while victory on Monday is far from a done deal, another win would catapult him even further into contention.
Since the PoY title was first awarded in 2004 there have only ever been four non-US winners — Australians Jeff Lisandro (2009) and Robert Campbell (2021), Germany’s George Danzer (2014) and Canada-born Daniel Negreanu (2004 & 2013), who now has US citizenship.
To be the first Japanese winner of this prestigious title would be a unique accomplishment, never to be repeated, and to be rightly celebrated.
He might even undo a second button.
The final day of the $2.5K Mixed Big Bet event is due to start at 1pm local time in the Paris ballroom.
WSOP $2.5K Mixed Big Bet Event — final day chip counts
- Naoya Kihara: 2.6M
- Matthew Vengrin: 1.3M
- Dylan Smith: 1.3M
- Nick Marchington: 1.3M
- Renan Bruschi: 1.2M
- Steve Billirakis: 1.1M
- Hiroyuki Noda: 937K
- Danny Chang: 892K
- Brad Owen: 800K
- Woody Deck: 703K
- Scott Abrams: 619K
- Ryuta Nakai: 592K
- Steve Chanthabouasy: 230K
Additional image courtesy of the WSOP. Player of the Year standings courtesy of the WSOP.
