He's widely recognized as one of the best players in the world, both live and online, and a staple of poker's high roller scene, but not everything can go your way, even if you're a superstar like Chris 'Big Huni' Hunichen.
Poker and life bring their ups and downs, but Hunichen's have been quite significant. We spoke to him in The Bahamas, during what was unfortunately a 'down' for him, with only an early $223,000 cash in a Triton event to his name. 'Paradise’ wasn’t exactly how he’d describe the series.
“Pretty s***ty," he says when we ask him how it's going. "Yeah, I got buried here. I got 13th in the $125K kind of early on. Lost a flip that would’ve put me around 5th, so that was pretty brutal.
"And then, since then, it's just been kind of a massacre. Got into the Super Main Event for eight bullets. I had piles, like four different bullets too, and just didn't cash. I lost AK to kings, 100 off the money on one of them. If I win that, I'm definitely in the money too.
"I could have saved a lot of money if I just won that one or avoided the cooler, but that's how it goes sometimes.”
While it wasn't a profitable couple of weeks here in The Bahamas, Hunichen did have plenty of praise for the Triton Poker Series, with one caveat.
“Triton is definitely better than anything else you're going to play, just the way it's run," Huni says. "You know, having all the updates and the chip stacks and everything, hand by hand, and just having investors and friends that want to sweat, being able to follow along and see every hand on the app is pretty cool.
"The rake is extremely high. So that's something you’ve gotta consider, but they definitely do perform. I mean, they do it better than anyone else. So, I guess sometimes you've got to pay for the product.”
Highs and lows — on the felt and off
By Hunichen’s standards, 2025 hasn’t been the greatest poker year of his career. No bracelets and a handful of six-figure cashes, but nothing compared to his last couple of years, which have seen his greatest success on the live felt, including a banner 2024 WSOP.
That summer saw him win his first bracelet, along with a career-high $2,838,389 in the $100,000 High Roller. Just three days later, he nearly parlayed that score into a second bracelet and an even bigger score, winning $2,397,312 in the $250,000 Super High Roller.
A rollercoaster two years before that began in 2022, after taking some time away from poker for other ventures and business interests.
That summer, he earned a near $2,000,000 score when he also finished third in the $250,000 High Roller at that year’s WSOP. But sadly, that spark was snuffed out the following summer.
“[The 2022 run] kind of reignited my passion for poker. It really brought the fire back a little bit. And then in 2023, I planned to play the full summer. That was when my dad passed away in the middle of the series. I still played a lot, but after he died, I didn't cash a single tournament the rest of the summer, so that was kind of wild."
Hunichen continues, “So last year was kind of like a dedication to my dad. But yeah, we’ve got a family now. I haven't been playing a lot, so I was taking a lot smaller pieces of myself, and then I obviously had the sickest week of my life, which made me start taking bigger pieces of myself – and not doing so well.
"It's kind of wild how it all happens, but yeah, still grateful. It was a fun week and definitely a special tournament to win, you know, to honor my dad.”
A Phenom indeed
Hunichen’s latest venture is his ambassadorship with Phenom Poker, the crypto-based online poker site with a small army of team pros the likes of which haven’t been seen since the days of Full Tilt Poker. It’s a partnership that the online poker legend known as ‘Big Huni’ is very proud of.
“Phenom’s great," he exclaims enthusiastically. "For one, I think it's nice to have someone to come in and challenge the poker sites that we already have.
"There are a lot of things that people aren't happy with, with a lot of the poker sites around the world. It's nice to be a brand ambassador for a poker site that's trustworthy, that cares about the players, and that does what they can for the players.”
He also explained why he believes more players should give the rapidly growing poker site a shot.
"I know they lowered the rake on all the tournaments," Huni says. "They also have the lowest rake in cash games. They don't hold the funds, so you never have to worry about getting them confiscated wrongfully. You deposit to play in that session, and as soon as you’re actually at the table, it's right back into your crypto wallet.”
What's next for Phenom
With plenty on offer already, he’s also excited about what else is coming to the site.
“I have a lot of belief in Phenom," he says. "I think the direction it’s headed is going to be very good. There's a lot of stuff coming soon, like Chinese Poker, and they're doing prediction market stuff. There are a lot of cool things coming. So, I really think now's the best time to get in. If you haven't joined Phenom, start playing."
One of the most appealing features of Phenom is the player ownership model that the site is built around. Hunichen explained how Phenom’s unique rakeback structure leads to players owning a piece of the site.
"The rakeback comes in tokens," he explains. "The token price was around 35 to 45 cents around launch, and we're at around $2.50 this week, so it's had some pretty significant growth. It was as high as $4 at one point, but it's a great time to get in, build up your rakeback, collect tokens, and hold onto them.
"And you know, that's another thing about Phenom: those tokens represent ownership of the company. So, Phenom is basically owned by the players and not just owned by corporate."
Along with his pride in representing the cryptocurrency-based poker site, he’s also proud of having built his personal fortune via Bitcoin, of which he was one of the fortunate early adopters.
“I think my first Bitcoin was $70," he says. "I was a big advocate of Bitcoin. I used to preach it on Facebook, back when it was sub-$100, and even, like, $100 to $200, just trying to get everybody to buy them. I got a lot of arguments about how it was a scam and everything, but I turned out to be right on that one.”
The party's over?!
Legendary poker player. Legendary crypto investor. And, perhaps most famously, a legendary party host.
As much as Hunichen is known for the first two things, it’s the latter that he was best known for in the poker community.
Until this year, a 4th of July blowout hosted by Huni was always on the docket, but the summer rager may now be something attendees will have to look back on fondly, as he says it may not return.
"If I had to give an answer now, I'd say probably not," he says. "This was the first year I didn't have it in a while. It's just so much work. And, you know, this year I had a lot of World Series side bets and 25K fantasy bets and stuff like that.
"Now that I'm playing again, pretty much every day at the World Series, I just don't think the distraction's really worth it, especially when I have a lot of equity in side bets that I really need to focus on.
"I don't know. I miss them. I mean, I played the Main Event on July 4 this year, and the whole f***ing room, every break... That's all I heard about from everybody. ‘Why are you here? You’re supposed to have a party.'
"And I'm like, I kind of FOMO a little bit, like, damn, I really should be having a party. Yeah, they were fun. But, you know, good things have to end at some point.”
