Chance Kornuth is the leader of the World Poker Tour (WPT) Gardens Poker Championship after Sunday’s Day 3, holding 1.709 million chips. With just 14 players remaining, Kornuth is in fantastic position to try for his first WPT title.
It’s a bit of the “haves and have-nots” on the leaderboard heading into Monday’s action. After Kornuth, Day 2 leader Markus Gonsalves has 1.580 million chips, followed by Duey Duong with 1.473 million. Nobody else has cracked the million-chip mark. Just two other players have more than 700,000. And five players are at about 400,000 and below, with Lior Orel holding on for dear life with just 52,000 chips.
Fortunately for the short stacks, the big blind is only 10,000 chips, so most of them still have some room to make a couple moves. It’s not a completely desperate situation, though it will be soon.
As mentioned, Kornuth has never won a World Poker Tour title, despite being a very decorated tournament player. He has more than $7.4 million in lifetime earnings, with a top cash of $641,140, claimed with a third place finish at the 2015 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event.
Though he has yet to win a WPT Main Event, Kornuth has won two World Series of Poker gold bracelets. The first came way back in 2010 in the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha event and the second was just a couple years ago in the $3,200 WSOP.com Online High Roller event.
Speaking with WPT.com afterward, Kornuth said that his day could not have gone much better.
“”I had a lot of pots go my way, people folded when I was bluffing, called when I had good hands, and shoved when I had Aces. It was a pretty dreamy day,” he said.
His plan for Monday is to wield his big stack like a bludgeon.
“I’m going to play a lot of pots, put people in difficult spots and go from there,” Kornuth added, giving a sneak-peek at his strategy.
The plan is to play down to the six-handed final table on Monday, but the tournament will not conclude on Tuesday. This is one of the World Poker Tour events whose final table will be contested at the HyperX Esports Arena at the Luxor in Las Vegas. The six finalists will have to wait until March 31st to determine the winner, though the WPT will clearly be paying for their travel expenses.
Those who make it to Vegas will be guaranteed at least $111,795, though they will all have their sights set on the $554,495 first prize and the WPT Champions Cup.
2020 World Poker Tour Gardens Poker Championship – Day 3 Chip Counts
- Chance Kornuth – 1,709,000
- Markus Gonsalves – 1,580,000
- Duey Duong – 1,473,000
- Tuan Phan – 920,000
- Ali Imsirovic – 768,000
- Qi Hu – 698,000
- David Miscikowski – 653,000
- Jonathan Cohen – 652,000
- Sebastiaan de Jonge – 651,000
- Vlastimil Pustina – 408,000
- Straton Wilhelm – 375,000
- Jared Griener – 225,000
- Qing Liu – 140,000
- Lior Orel – 52,000
Lead photo credit: WPT.com/Joe Giron
