Chance Kornuth has built one of the most impressive résumés in modern poker. The Colorado native has captured four World Series of Poker bracelets and a World Poker Tour title, while amassing more than $21 million in live tournament earnings.
Beyond his success at the tables, Kornuth has become a prominent figure in the poker community as an ACR Poker Team Pro and the founder of Chip Leader Coaching, where he helps players sharpen their game.
I’m a huge fan of your short tweets of wisdom. Does one particular tweet come to mind as your own personal favorite?
Chance Kornuth: I actually have two favorite tweets that I’ve ever done. One’s not even a short piece of wisdom. It was actually a chip stacking thread I did two, three years ago.
And the reason I liked it so much is, one, it got tons of engagement and views or whatever, but also because I think it legitimately changed the way people stack their chips at the table. Regs, recs, like everyone now stacks their chips in a way that they know how much they have. And I genuinely think that a lot of that happened because of that tweet.
The other one that was my favorite was, I forgot the exact verbiage that was used, but it was something about, like, if a guy’s spouse is watching him on the rail, look at their shoes. If you know, you know. And I think that one comes to mind just because there were so many people who didn’t realize what it was, but it was actually that if the person had flats on, they were probably a good poker player because they were used to standing out around for a while.
And the higher their shoes, the more likely the person they were railing was terrible at poker, just because they weren’t expecting to be there very long and stand around in those shoes.
It seems that if I were to summarize the wisdom in your tweets, your focus really seems to be on exploitative play and avoiding self-sabotage. Would you agree with that?
Chance Kornuth: I would definitely agree with that.
I think that exploitive play is the key to success in poker. All these people are caught up with wanting to play GTO, but at the end of the day, GTO is just two computers figuring out how to create a break-even, unexploitable strategy against each other. And the beauty of poker is exploiting your opponents and making as much money as possible.
GTO can be interesting, but it’s not the fun way to play poker. And then avoiding self-sabotage is also quite important. There are a lot of poker players who can pass a poker test, but when you put them on the felt, they can’t execute in-game. And that’s the type of player that just can’t win.
Poker Players Need To Learn How To Play Shallow
As somebody who coaches a lot of players, do you agree with the suggestion that most poker players already know what they need to do? It’s just whether or not they are able to execute on it? That’s what I’ve always got from your tweets.
Chance Kornuth: I do think that a lot of players know what they need to do, but it’s more than just not being able to execute on it. I think a lot of them don’t know how to do it.
The biggest pain point I get from poker players is, I always bleed towards the money and then either lose a coin flip right before the bubble or lose a coin flip right after it and then cash. That’s one of the biggest things that people beat themselves up over or makes it that they don’t have much fun in poker. And it’s because they don’t really know how to accumulate when stacks get more shallow.
They’re good at accumulating chips when players are really, really bad. As the field composition gets more difficult as you get deeper in a tournament, they’re not good at taking people’s chips. So long story short, they’re good at getting chips when they’re being given in early stages against bad players.
Raw Dog Your Play And Put The Phone Away
Sometimes the simplest lessons are the most important. Have you had people tell you that their game changed because of a single tweet that you posted?
Chance Kornuth: I definitely have had people tell me that their game has changed from a single tweet. The biggest one is just raw dogging your poker play and putting the phone away. The amount of information that people don’t know they’re missing because they’re just showing up and punching a clock and on their phone, but they don’t pay attention to hands they’re not in.
This year, the WSOP main event implemented a shot clock deep into the event. Who do you think the shot clock gives the edge to, the professional or the amateur? Would you like to see a shot clock in future main events?
Chance Kornuth: The shot clock implemented deep in the main was quite interesting. At first it’s like, hey, surprise everybody. And so from that perspective, I actually thought it was really bad, but I think overall it’s really good. One, you just get significantly more hands. So the best player should win at a higher frequency, right? Cause the more skill edge.
But I also think that it helps an amateur more. If you watch the coverage, which I’ve watched a ton of, the amateurs just blast away and make their decisions and kind of know what they’re going to do. They’re either going to bet, they’re going to check, they’re going to fold, whatever. It’s the pros who are thinking through all of the stuff that they’ve ever learned and often coming to the correct conclusion. And so I think that it’s actually really good and is a net positive for the amateur.
ACR Poker Channeling The Old Full Tilt Days
How have the new tax laws in America changed your volume and the games that you play this year?
Chance Kornuth: The tax laws in America haven’t really changed my volume. I still play what I want. I would say the biggest thing that changed my volume is just having a family and my desire to focus on chip leader coaching.
One, because I genuinely enjoy coaching and seeing other people succeed because of what we’ve worked on. But more so just because I get to be home with my family and I get to have a nine-to-five and spend the mornings and the evenings with everyone. And it’s really hard to beat that. Watching your kids grow up is incredible. And I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
You signed with ACR Poker at the start of the summer. Now that the WSOP is in the rear-view mirror, what are you looking forward to playing on ACR?
Chance Kornuth: I pretty much only play online on ACR Poker these days, almost exclusively. And so I love playing the Venoms. I’ll definitely fire the occasional Phil’s Thrill and some of the other stuff, but the Venoms are just absolutely incredible. And just their Sunday series in general is fantastic.
I can fire up anywhere between one and 10 tables and at different buy-in levels. And it’s really nice to have those options that I remember back in the PokerStars and Full Tilt days.
- Photos: WSOP – Alicia Skillman, Travis Ball, Monique Marestein, Lennart Hennig
