Event #2 Winner Chance Kornuth Leads the Final Table of Event #3: $4,000 No-Limit Hold’em, 12 advance to Event #4

Chance Kornuth came into Event #3: $4,000 No-Limit Hold’em shortly after winning Event #2 and quickly made use of his seat by amassing chips. He now finds himself in an excellent position to potentially go back-to-back as he chip leads with six players remaining. Joining Kornuth in the final six are Joseph Cheong, Mitchell Halverson, Daniel Weinand, Nathan Zimnik, and Jesse Lonis.

Kornuth heads into the final six with 2,635,000, and he will have more than a 1 million chip lead over second-place Cheong (1,500,000). Halverson sits in third place with 1,290,000, Weinand is fourth on the leaderboard with 1,190,000, and Zimnik will come into the final day fifth in chips with 1,140,000. Lonis heads into the day as the short stack with 645,000 in chips, good for almost 13 big blinds.

When play resumes there is 14:13 remaining in level 16 and the button is in seat 4

Shortly after winning Event #2, Kornuth took his seat in Event #3 and quickly started accumulating chips. He found a double-up with kings versus the Lonis’ sixes shortly after sitting down, and soon after, doubled through Lonis again when his ace-queen got there over pocket tens.

Kornuth won another big pot about an hour later when he called Justin Saliba’s river bluff, and then held pockets kings over ace-six to knock out Ilyas Muradi and take sizable chip lead with over a million chips. He continued his run by eliminating Ausmus in 13th place, Parenteau in ninth place, and Shing in eighth place on his way to securing the chip lead heading into the final day.

Cheong lost a pot near the end of the day to add to Kornuth’s chip lead, but he is still going into the final table second in chips and will be looking to improve upon his finish in Stairway to Millions Event #1, where he took home the third-place prize.

The 84-entrant field created a prize pool of $336,000 and awarded the top 12 finishers with a min-cash of $13,440, which includes a seat into Event #4: $8,000 No-Limit Hold’em. The top six are guaranteed at least $20,160 including the seat but have their eyes fixed on the first-place prize of $80,640.

Those that did not make the final six but walked away with a seat into Event #4 include Ryan Riess (10th), Jeremy Ausmus (11th), and Michael Wang (12th). Both Ausmus and Wang will look to continue their journey up the Stairway to Millions as not only did both players win their way into Event #3, but they have also now won their way into Event #4.

Kornuth has now successfully laddered his way up to the fourth event by cashing in all of the first three events. In Event #1, he finished in 16th out of 190. In Event #2, he finished in first out of 129. In Event #3, he will finish anywhere between first and sixth.

After the final table concludes, he will have won between $75,560 and $136,040 including event seats, and he will only have had to pay the $1,100 buy-in from the first event, not including possible re-entries. Additionally, after the final table concludes, he will be attempting to run up yet another stack in Event #4 and climb the “stairway” even higher.

The unique format of Stairway To Millions sees all players to cash in an event win a seat to the next event. All 12 players to cash in Event #3: $4,000 NL Hold’em won a ticket to play in Event #4: $8,000 NL Hold’em. The fourth event kicks off on Saturday, January 15, at 12 p.m. PT. The “stairway” element applies to all events on the schedule, leading to the $100,000 buy-in finale.

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