As we move through life, we have good days and bad days, good weeks and bad weeks. For me, a good week is usually one in which I get my work done quickly every day, have a chance to relax a bit, and my wife and kids have happy, healthy, life-work balances (the school year ends in a couple weeks!). Maybe throw in academic and/or extracurricular success for my kids and some good wins for my sports teams. Bin Weng, though, is having a week that doesn’t even exist in my dreams. On Monday, he made the final table of the World Poker Tour (WPT) Choctaw Main Event, giving him his second WPT final table in the span of just a few days.
But it is even better than that. He is the chip leader heading into the final table of BOTH the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown and WPT Choctaw. And both of the final tables are part of the Tour’s delayed end game, as both will be played later this month at the HyperX Esports Arena at Luxor in Las Vegas. Bin Weng could end up winning World Poker Tour titles on consecutive days.
The WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown looks like his to lose at this point, as he has 40% of the chips at the final table. Obviously, it’s poker and anyone can still win it, but Weng is certainly in a better position than most ever are at the start of a final table.
WPT Choctaw is a different story, though Weng also holds the chip lead in this one. He will have 8.800 million chips at the outset of the final table, solidly ahead of second place Jared Jaffee, who will begin with 7.225 million.
Unlike at Seminole, where Weng is the only player of the remaining six with WPT final table experience, two of his opponents at Choctaw have WPT titles to their names: Jaffee and Erkut Yilmaz.
For a little while, it looked like Weng could go into the WPT Choctaw final table with a much larger lead. After he eliminated former chip leader Brandon Guzman in 8th place, he was up to nearly 11 million chips. But then he doubled-up Rusty Farrin and folded a healthy pot to Jaffee to take his stack down a couple notches. That said, having a 16 big blind lead to start the final stretch is still pretty nice.
Hopefully Weng will get plenty of rest in the next couple weeks as he prepares for consecutive final table battles in his attempt to make history.
2023 WPT Choctaw – Final Table Chip Counts
- Bin Weng – 8,800,000
- Jared Jaffee – 7,225,000
- Mike Vanier – 5,300,000
- Dojie Ignacio – 4,225,000
- Erkut Yilmaz – 3,150,000
- Rusty Farrin – 1,900,000
Image credit: Flickr.com / World Poker Tour