In 2017 Chance Kornuth started a company to teach other people how to play tournaments. That was an unusual move for a player in his position. He already had a WSOP bracelet, a long list of deep runs and a reputation as one of the sharper American tournament players of his generation. Chip Leader Coaching turned that reputation into a business, and it changed what his career looks like on paper.
Most players at his level earn from two sources: prize money and the shares they sell to backers. Kornuth added a third, and it is the one that keeps paying when the cards go cold.
Denver, engineering, and a semester left unfinished
Kornuth was born in Denver, Colorado, in 1986. He grew up on strategy games and went to the University of Colorado to study civil engineering. He left in his final semester to play poker for a living.
The early bet paid off quickly. At the 2010 World Series of Poker, aged 24, he won the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha event for $508,090. It was an Omaha title, not hold’em, and it marked him from the start as a player comfortable outside the most common game. If you have only played hold’em, Omaha’s four-card hands make the hand rankings feel different even though they are the same; the complete hand rankings apply, but the nuts change on almost every board.
Four bracelets in four different formats
Kornuth’s bracelets are spread across formats, which says something about how he studies.
Swipe the table
| Year | Event | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha | $508,090 |
| 2018 | $3,200 WSOP.com Online NLH High Roller | $341,599 |
| 2021 | $10,000 Short Deck | $194,670 |
| 2024 | $1,000 Flip & Go No-Limit Hold’em | $155,446 |
The 2018 title came online, on WSOP.com in Nevada, during the period when the series began awarding bracelets for internet events. The 2021 win came in Short Deck, the 36-card variant in which a flush beats a full house, a game few American players had studied seriously before it arrived in high roller schedules. The 2024 title came in Flip & Go, a format that opens with a forced all-in phase to cut each table down before normal play begins. It is about as far from a $250,000 Super High Roller as tournament poker gets, and Kornuth won it anyway.
His biggest cashes came in the expensive events. At the 2023 WSOP he finished fifth in the $250,000 Super High Roller for $1,202,318. At the 2024 WSOP he finished second in the $50,000 High Roller for $1,351,000, his largest single score. As of 2025 his live tournament earnings were above $19 million, with more than half of that won at the WSOP alone, and he had made more than 20 WSOP final tables.
Chip Leader Coaching
The coaching company is the part of Kornuth’s career that separates him from other players with similar results. Chip Leader Coaching sells tournament training: courses, group sessions and material built around the decisions that come up in multi-table events. Alex Foxen, one of the most successful tournament players in the world over the past decade, has been one of the main faces of the company alongside Kornuth. Foxen’s own record makes the point: at the 2022 WSOP he won the $250,000 Super High Roller for $4,563,700, his first bracelet, beating Wichita businessman Brandon Steven heads-up. A coaching brand whose instructors win events of that size does not need to argue for its credentials.
Training sites in poker grew up with the online game. Their content has shifted in recent years towards solver-based study, where software calculates near-optimal strategies and coaches translate the output into rules a human can use at the table. (For the basics of that kind of software, see this beginner’s guide to solvers.) A tournament coaching brand also benefits directly from its founders’ results. Each deep run by Kornuth or Foxen at the WSOP or on the high roller circuit doubles as marketing.
You will notice the logic if you follow the high roller fields. A professional’s prize money is volatile; a subscription base is steadier. For a player whose career depends on large buy-ins, a business that pays every month is a hedge against variance.
Net worth once buy-ins and backers are counted
No source publishes a verified net worth for Chance Kornuth. Figures that circulate online are estimates, and they mostly start from his tournament earnings, which is the only part of his finances with public numbers.
Those numbers need two corrections before they mean anything. First, earnings are gross. A $250,000 or $50,000 buy-in is paid whether a player cashes or not, and high rollers enter many such events each year. Second, players at this level routinely sell pieces of their action, so a seven-figure cash is often split among several backers. A player can show $19 million in lifetime cashes and keep only a fraction of it.
The coaching company adds value that is invisible from the outside. Chip Leader Coaching is private and does not report revenue, and its worth depends on subscribers and course sales that no database tracks. Kornuth has a large, documented tournament record and owns a business in a growing niche. Any single net-worth figure is a guess. For the players at the very top of the poker wealth list, see the richest poker players and their net worth.
The 2024 summer
The 2024 WSOP sums up the two sides of Kornuth’s game. In the same series he won a $1,000 bracelet in one of the cheapest, fastest formats on the schedule and finished second in a $50,000 High Roller in a field made up largely of high roller regulars. The two results sit fourteen years after his first bracelet, which came in an Omaha event at 24, a semester short of an engineering degree he never went back to finish.