With over 94 million chips, Brian Kim takes his place at the 2024 WSOP Main Event final table with the second largest stack. It’s a bigger pile than the three shortest stacks combined, good for around 60 big blinds, and barring any disasters should see him comfortably ladder up into the higher pay brackets.
But there’s another number that sticks out when we compare the final table players, and that’s lifetime tournament winnings. Kim has accumulated earnings of over $7 million in his career so far, putting him above the likes of Calvin Anderson, Stephen Song and Galen Hall in the all-time money list. It also puts him head and shoulders above the competition at this final table - in the live game, at least - where Joe Serock comes closest with around $4.5 million in live tournament earnings.
With the final table set to resume at 1:30pm today, Kim spoke to reporters ahead of his chance to make poker history.
How are you feeling going into this final table?
I’m gonna put in my best effort. It’s kind of the Super Bowl of Poker… to actually be here, it’s completely wild. Yeah, I can’t really believe it.
As someone who’s played Triton Super High Rollers, you’ve been around really big money jumps. Do you think that’s helped you in this situation?
After the 2022 Main Event run [Kim finished 23rd for $323,100] I started having a big interest in tournaments and I wanted to get better at them. So since that tournament I’ve been doing a lot of work and yeah, I definitely think it helped me a lot today.
Brian Kim in action at the Triton Poker Series in Cyprus, 2023.You spent some really long stretches of this tournament on a really short stack. How gratifying it is to have fought through that to get to this point?
I think I learned from experience that just kind of checking out when you’re under 10 [big blinds], it’s not going to do you any favors. Just staying dialed in and trying to make the best possible play is going to be the best way to go.
Actually, something extremely lucky happened on day five. One person was late back from dinner break and they were the big blind. So, I shoved with a hand that I normally wouldn’t have had he been there, and I doubled up. So from that, I was able to take 11.4 big blinds to day six, and then got some luck. And now I’m here.
Coming from a largely cash background, and only more recently getting into tournaments, was something like a Main Event final table something on your bucket list?
For sure it was on my bucket list. I mean, I’ve had 30 to 38 very vivid dreams about final tabling the Main Event, 30 percent of them I’m winning, and then I’m waking up, very, very sad. And I honestly never thought I would be here.
Additional image courtesy of Triton Poker Series.
