Bin Weng Wins 2023 Card Player Player of the Year Award

Bin Weng has been putting up results on the live tournament circuit since 2015. While Weng had become more of a factor on the scene in recent years, with back-to-back top 100 finishes in the Card Player Player of the Year race in 2021 (35th) and 2022 (93rd), he came into 2023 without a marquee victory to his name.

That all changed this year, as the 40-year-old Chinese-born player based out of Philadelphia reeled off six massive wins and 16 final-table finishes to win this year’s POY race, presented by Global Poker, in dominant fashion. Weng’s top five tournament scores were all recorded in 2023, including two big wins in World Poker Tour events. Weng secured three million-dollar-plus victories over the past 12 months, with the first coming just over a week into the new year. He didn’t just start strong, though. He also finished strong. Weng bookended his run with a $958,279 win in a high-roller event just a couple of weeks before 2023 ended.

Weng’s $6,652,433 in total cashes across 52 in-the-money finishes this year account for nearly 78 percent of his overall lifetime total of $8,570,015.

All told, Weng accumulated 12,256 POY points and more than $6.4 million in POY earnings this year. His 2,243-point lead over the second-place finisher (Isaac Haxton, 10,013 points) in the final standings was the second-largest margin in the past 20 years of the race.

In recent years the POY award winner has mostly been one of the top nosebleed-stakes tournament grinders who focus on events with buy-ins of $25,000 or higher. While Weng did manage a few big runs in high rollers this year, the majority of his deep runs came at the ‘main event’ price point. Of his 16 final tables, 14 of them sported a buy-in of $10,500 or less. As a result, the average buy-in of the events that he final tabled was $6,519. All three of his seven-figure scores came in events with buy-ins between $3,500 and $10,500.

Weng’s consistency this year is made all the more impressive by the fact that he managed to battle his way through massive fields again and again. The average number of entries in the six tournaments that he won this year was 1,174.

The journey to this accomplishment began for Weng in the early 2010s. He was working in a restaurant after moving to the US and saw WPT final tables on television. It’s only fitting, then, that the WPT was the tour on which Weng managed some of the most impressive accomplishments during his red-hot run.

“It is my biggest dream to put my name on the Mike Sexton cup,” said Weng in an interview with the WPT.

In 2023, Weng lived out that dream and many more. Now, his name has also been added to the prestigious list of Card Player POY award winners. Below we’ll take a closer look at his standout year on the live poker circuit.

Off To A Fast Start

The Return Championship $5,300 buy-in no-limit hold’em event at The Borgata was the first tournament of the year to award a seven-figure top prize. The event ran from Jan. 4-8, with a massive field of 1,142 entries made by the time registration closed. The strong turnout resulted in a $5,538,700 prize pool, blowing away the $3 million guarantee.

After two starting flights and three more days of action, Weng emerged victorious with the title, the $1,000,000 top prize, and 1,920 POY points. Weng overcame a final table that included two-time bracelet winner Justin Saliba and 2015 World Series of Poker main event champion Joe McKeehn. Weng and eventual runner-up Sundiata Devore hashed out a heads-up deal to redistribute the remaining prize money a bit, with Devore ultimately taking home $926,128 for his efforts when his A-Q was unable to come from behind against Weng’s A-K.

Weng made another final table in January, placing fourth in a $600 buy-in turbo event at the Lucky Hearts Poker Open for $3,520 and 48 points.

It would take another month before Weng managed another POY-qualified score. From a field of 833 entries in the WSOP Circuit Horseshoe Las Vegas $1,700 main event, Weng emerged victorious with the title, his first gold ring, $227,344 in prize money, and another 912 points.

Weng had to overcome a tough final table, including defeating bracelet winner and high-stakes regular Alex Foxen heads-up.

“This tournament meant a lot to me. I have won four or five titles, but never a WSOP tournament. Getting a ring means a lot to me, I’m kind of speechless right now because I’m just so excited,” Weng told WSOP Circuit reporters after the win. “Alex Foxen is one of my poker idols. We are originally from the same area, Long Island. I just feel so thankful to take this down and get the chance to play with Foxen. He is one of the best players right now.”

Weng’s early success put him among the top contenders in the POY standings as winter came to a close. What he achieved in the spring is what truly solidified his status as one of the players to beat in this year’s race.

A Historic WPT Performance

In early May, Weng managed an unprecedented feat: making the final table of two WPT main events as the chip leader in the span of a single week.

Weng started off by navigating a field of 2,290 entries in the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown $3,500 buy-in no-limit hold’em main event in South Florida. The huge turnout resulted in the $3 million guarantee being more than doubled, which meant a top prize of $1.1 million for the eventual champion.

Weng bagged up more than 40 percent of the total chips in play heading into the delayed final table, which would play out a few weeks later on May 25th at the HyperX Arena located in Luxor Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Just six days after making that first final table, Weng cemented his spot at the WPT Choctaw $3,800 buy-in no-limit hold’em main event. This time around the field was made up of 612 entries, resulting in more than $400,000 up top. While Weng did end up with the lead again, WPT champion and WSOP bracelet winner Jared Jaffee was not far behind.

The WPT Choctaw final table would play down to a champion the day after the SHRPS in Las Vegas, which meant that Weng would have to play massive final tables on back-to-back days with more than $1.5 million in potential prize money to be won.

In between making the WPT final tables and playing them, Weng managed to make two final tables at the Lodge Championship Series, including a runner-up finish in the $25,000 event there to none other than Alex Foxen, who he defeated heads-up in the WSOPC main event in Las Vegas months earlier. His two deep runs at that series added 322 points and nearly $165,000 to his totals for the year.

Weng converted his first opportunity into the title, closing out the win during a final table that lasted roughly five hours. He earned $1,128,250 as the champion and added his name to the Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup in the process, and in doing so achieved one of his major poker goals.

Wrapping up that final table relatively quickly gave Weng nearly 19 hours to rest and return with a shot at winning another WPT title the following day. He ultimately finished fourth in the WPT Choctaw, though, earning $143,000 to increase his haul to nearly $1.3 million across the two events. He also earned 630 points, bringing his total to 5,505. That was good for second place in the POY standings at the time. Jaffee went on to secure the title.

Weng’s performance in this stretch set him up to secure the WPT Player of the Year award. Of course, Weng was far from done racking up results in 2023.

The Heater Continues

The summer months are some of the busiest of the year on the live poker scene. Weng had a relatively quiet June, with five cashes but no final-table runs during that month. He got back to his winning ways in July, though.

Wynn Las Vegas hosted a new series that month that included the $10,500 buy-in WPT EveryOne For One Drop $10,000,000 guaranteed no-limit hold’em tournament. With a sizable field of 1,676 entries, the guarantee was surpassed by more than $6.2 million. The event also raised over $300,000 for the One Drop Foundation. After three starting flights and two more days of action, that sea of players was narrowed to just six hopefuls. You can probably guess about who bagged up the chip lead.

Weng converted that advantage into his second WPT title of the year, securing a career-high payday of $2,227,054 as a result.

“I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t sleep all that well last night because I was too excited,” Weng said after the win. “I don’t know what to say right now. I mean, I’m really, really happy for sure, and I’m really grateful right now for being this far in a short period of time.”

Weng overcame not only a big turnout but also a tough field. Among those that ran deep were four-time WPT champion Darren Elias (19th), two-time POY champion Stephen Chidwick (16th), 2023 WPT Prime Championship winner Calvin Anderson (10th), WSOP main event sixth-place finishers Kenny Hallaert (9th) and Tom Cannuli (6th), three-time bracelet winner Dominik Nitsche (5th), and Scott Baumstein (2nd).

The large buy-in and field size in this event led to a massive haul of 2,700 POY points for Weng as the champion. This propelled him into the outright lead in the POY standings heading into the back half of the year.

Closing Strong

Weng added four more final-table finishes in August and September, with those four deep runs contributing another 1,030 points and $214,004 in POY earnings. The largest of those scores was a third-place showing in a $10,100 buy-in event at the Poker Masters for $116,400 and 360 points.

The next time Weng posed for a winner photo, though, came in the middle of October. He outlasted a field of 860 entries in the $1,600 buy-in mystery bounty event at the Wynn Fall Classic for another $159,078 and 912 points. This fifth title helped Weng keep some distance between himself and several high-roller regulars who were threatening his hold on the top spot in the POY standings.

Weng fell just shy of another title in mid-November, placing second in a $2,500 buy-in event at the Fall Mini-Series at Borgata for $134,897 and 900 points. He didn’t have to wait too long to find himself heads-up again, though.

On Dec. 18, Weng earned his sixth and final title of 2023. He beat out a field of 194 entries in the $25,700 buy-in high roller at the WPT World Championship Festival at Wynn Las Vegas, earning $958,279 and 1,176 points after striking a heads-up deal with Thomas Boivin.

This was the fourth-largest score of Weng’s career, bringing his lifetime earnings to nearly $8.6 million. It was a fitting finale for a dominant performance on the live felt in 2023.

Weng’s Top Ten Scores of 2023:

A look at the top 20 in the final 2023 POY race standings:

The Complete List of Card Player Player of the Year Winners:

World Poker Tour image credits: WPT / Drew Amato. WSOP Circuit winner photo provided by WSOP.

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