June 1-3
WSOP Circuit cashes for Honghao Zhang before his first gold bracelet on Wednesday night.
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1ST
Honghao Zhang
$346,108
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2ND
Harlan Karnofsky
$230,626
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3RD
David Rees
$163,172
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4TH
Thai Dinh
$116,951
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5TH
Daniel Hill
$84,929
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6TH
Julien Duveau
$62,501
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7TH
Michel Molenaar
$46,619
Honghao Zhang made his first-ever trip to the WSOP payout window on Wednesday night, but he had to take his winner's photo first.
Zhang, who is now a WSOP champion after a wicked run in the $1,500 Six Max, had never cashed at the WSOP before Wednesday. Although he has been cutting his teeth on the WSOP Circuit.
Zhang has run up $373K since his first Hendon Mob entry in 2023, an impressive total that sports a runner-up finish at a $1,100 buy-in during the 2025 WPT Championship series.
That run was good for $355K, just a hair more than Zhang will take home for winning his first bracelet in the $1,500 Six Max at the 2026 WSOP. Most of his other cashes come from trips to the WSOP Circuit stops at Cherokee, just a three-hour trip from Georgia Tech, where he is a PhD student.
"I mainly play for cash," Zhang told us after his win, explaining that he is relatively new to tournaments.
But Zhang had the touch. "Patience," he explained. "That's the most important thing. You don't fight for a borderline spot, and you wait for a better spot. You identify your opponent's mistakes."
Patience
Zhang would need that patience on a final day where he started near the top of the leaderboard before falling to the short stacks at the start of the final table. It was a comeback that saw final table favorite Justin Arnwine fall early, just after fan favorite Rania Nasreddine bowed out in ninth place.
Arnwine's run was likely a mildly disappointing one after entering the final day with one of the dominating stacks. He surrendered an early double and never recovered, settling for an early exit in eighth place for $35,250. Not bad for three days' work.
Zhang, for his part, was still the short stack when the tournament hit three-handed play, but that's where his fortunes turned. A few early pots set up a runner-runner flush against David Rees that would vault Zhang back into contention and trigger heads-up play.
He would look across the table to Harlan Karnofsky of Sacramento, California. Karnofsky was playing with a broken leg, but it was hardly a handicap as he traded blows with Zhang over a relatively close heads-up session.
Zhang would pull away eventually, putting Karnofsky down with an ace-five after a few missed match points. He will now continue on at the 2026 WSOP as one of its champions, but he's got the taste for it now.
"I'm going to fight for one more."
Winner's image courtesy of World Series of Poker.
