Chance Kornuth Discusses $25,000 High Roller Final Table Spree29-Year-Old Poker Pro Talks About His Strong Start To 2016 |
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Chance Kornuth has experienced a worldwide whirlwind of high roller poker tournament success so far in 2016. The 29-year-old has made three final tables already this year, each coming in a $25,000 buy-in event and each taking place on a different continent. Kornuth began by finishing seventh in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $25,000 high roller event for $192,780 in the Bahamas. Just over a week later he took down the Aussie Millions $25,000 AUD high roller event, topping a field of 122 entries to win the equivalent of $553,392 USD. He rounded out his international spree with a runner-up showing in the €25,750 high roller at the European Poker Tour Dublin festival, adding another $404,052 to bring his year-to-date total earnings to $1,150,224 by the end of the second month of 2016.
Kornuth has also made his way inside the top ten in Card Player’s Player of the Year rankings as a result of his great start. We caught up with the young pro on break at the 2016 World Poker Tour L.A. Poker Classic main event to discuss his high roller success, getting married a few years back and much more.
Erik Fast: You’ve racked up three high roller final-table finishes and one title, on three different continents. That’s a pretty great start to the year.
Chance Kornuth: The year has been pretty perfect. I can’t imagine it going too much better in any of the spots. I’ve run excellent in big hands. I’ve had a blast with friends all around the world. It’s just been a really incredible start to 2016.
EF: Coming out on top in the high roller event at the Aussie Millions earned you the second biggest payday of your live tournament career. Can you talk a little bit about your run to the title in that event?
CK: I was super short a couple times in that one. I had 5,100 chips at 800-1,600 on my second bullet. I was down to five or six big blinds another time around the money bubble, but I just won every time I was all in and called. I was super lucky to find some good hands in big spots.
EF: In recent years there seems to have been a polarization of buy-ins. In the early and mid 2000’s the $10,000 main event reigned supreme, but in recent years many main event buy-ins have gotten smaller while six-figure buy-in super high rollers have popped up all around the circuit. The $25,000 buy-in ends up being somewhere in between now. Do you think you’ve had success in this particular price point as a result of a strength in your game, is it just variance, or more likely is it some combination of both?
CK: I think it definitely has a lot to do with the good structures in these events. There was a ton of luck as well it goes without saying, but I would say that the super deep starting stacks with antes coming in early, which is tailored to my aggressive style. A lot of the tournament players aren’t super comfortable with 200 big blinds, whereas I love it.
EF: That probably comes from your background with playing a lot of cash games. Is that still a big part of your approach as a professional?
CK: I was playing a ton of cash over the last few years, but in the last four or five months I haven’t been playing much cash at all and that’s one of the reasons that I’ve been doing my best to come out and take shots at bigger buy-in tournaments.
EF: Is that just a byproduct of changes in your life or why are you not playing as much cash?
CK: Mostly it’s because I used to get seats in private games and I don’t anymore.
EF: The whole world of private cash games is really intriguing. What changed to make it that you weren’t able to get seats anymore?
CK: I think that mostly it’s a situation where, the people who run the cash games, that is all they do. That is their main focus year round and that is they key to their longevity. They don’t want the recreational players to lose that fast. Once you figure an amateur player out and beat them in a few tough situations, the pro will start to not want you there, even if the recreational player enjoys your company.
EF: Back to the tournament circuit. With the strong start to the year, do you plan on ramping up your schedule and playing even more around the world and across the United States?
CK: I would say a lot around the whole world. My wife and I are starting to think about having kids in the not so far off future. Right now we have a really good opportunity to try to make a lot of money and see the whole world in the process. Luckily my job allows me to do both sometimes!
EF: Speaking of which, the last three years on the tournament circuit have been three of your biggest in terms of amount of money you cashed for. Three years ago is also when you got engaged. Does correlation imply causation here?
CK: Ha, my wife Emily is incredible. When I have gone on downswings she has been there to support me and take me out to do something fun, to help me mentally reset. I definitely think that could be one of the big factors that has helped me in recent years.
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