Chance Kornuth is one of the best players in the world on one of the biggest heaters in the world, there’s no doubt about that. He’s also one of the nicest players in the game, nobody’s willing to argue that either.
After Kornuth broke his own personal high score three times and shipped the Wynn Mystery Bounty, we preemptively labeled this summer as “ The summer of Chance”, even before he flirted with the Main Event title before getting rocked by one Nicholas Rigby.
We hold Kornuth in the highest regard, but did we speak too soon? Is he actually having the best summer of them all?
Coming into the poker world with just as much of a kind heart and perhaps even a better poker resume this summer is Bin Weng, who just so happens to be a member of Kornuth’s Chip Leader Coaching.
Credit: World Poker Tour
Weng will come into tomorrow’s $10,500 WPT EveryOne for One Drop as the chip leader. With $2,561,480 up top and $524,500 already locked up, this is an incredible feat on its own. But for Weng, this is the third time since making it out to Las Vegas this summer that he goes into a WPT final table with the chip lead.
Final Table Chip Stacks
Seat 1. Dominik Nitsche - 8,125,000 (33 bb)
Seat 2. Scott Baumstein - 10,975,000 (44 bb)
Seat 3. Freddy Heller - 9,300,000 (37 bb)
Seat 4. Niko Koop - 14,825,000 (59 bb)
Seat 5. Bin Weng - 21,025,000 (84 bb)
Seat 6. Tom Cannuli - 2,800,000 (11 bb)
Payouts
1st: $2,561,480
2nd: $1,740,000
3rd: $1,302,000
4th: $956,000
5th: $700,100
6th: $524,500
It’s worth reminding everyone that these aren’t small-field high rollers that Weng is dominating. These are large-field (1,676, 612, and 2,290-entry) events with the best players in the game. Yet it’s Weng who has always made it to the final day on top. How is this possible? Has there ever been a time when someone has led three straight WPT final tables? Surely not.
Weng would go on to ship the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown for $1,128,250 and finish 4th in the WPT Choctaw Main Event for $143,000 the following day.
If we look a step further, Weng is doing so much more than just crushing WPT events this year. He started the year by winning the much-anticipated “The Return” at the Borgata, topping a 1,142-entry field to win $1,000,000. A month later, Weng won a WSOP Circuit ring in Las Vegas, defeating Chip Leader Coaching’s Alex Foxen heads-up in the 833-entry $1,700 Main Event to take home another $227,344.
Credit: World Poker Tour
In May, ahead of his back-to-back WPT final tables, Weng went down to The Lodge and finished 2nd in a very competitive 20-man $25,000 High Roller for $145,000, this time succumbing to Foxen.
All-in-all, should Weng secure at least a 5th-place finish on Friday, he’ll have made more money in 2023 than Kornuth. Should Weng secure a top-four finish, he will, by our calculations, also jump back into the #1 spot in the 2023 GPI Player of the Year rankings.
So maybe we need to let the “Summer of Chance” label fade away into the scorching desert air and call it the well-deserved “Year of Weng.”
Tune into the WPT Live Stream beginning at 1:30 pm (on a 30-minute delay) and find out if Weng can win his second WPT event of the summer.
