Robert Kuhn Has 12 Million Chips and a Résumé Built for This Exact Event

Robert Kuhn won his bracelet in a format most poker fans can't name, collected two Circuit rings nobody noticed, and right now he's sitting on 12 million chips with 18 players left in the $1,700 U.S. Circuit Championship. This is the one event on the entire 2026 WSOP schedule designed to reward the grinders who spent all year driving to Harrah's Cherokee and Caesars New Orleans.

Kuhn is exactly the player the event was built for. And he's running over it.

The Stack Nobody Expected

At the two-table redraw on June 4, Kuhn's 12 million chips sat so far above the field that it bordered on absurd. The next-closest stack belonged to Donovan Dicken at 6.71 million, barely more than half of Kuhn's tower. Behind Dicken, Qing Sun held 4.855 million. Everyone else was fighting for survival below 3 million.

Kuhn's 12 million chips sat so far above the field that it bordered on absurd.

To understand how unusual that gap is, consider the texture of this final 18. Only one player at either table holds a bracelet. That's Kuhn. Only one player has Circuit rings. Also Kuhn. His two rings and $720,715 in lifetime cashes across 10 career final tables make him the most credentialed grinder remaining in a field built specifically for credentialed grinders.

The Field Around Him

Kuhn isn't the only interesting name still in contention.

Lexy Gavin-Mather, with $478,722 in lifetime earnings and six career final tables, held 1.2 million at the last count before the redraw. She's short but not desperate. Gavin-Mather has survived deep in fields like this before, and the U.S. Circuit Championship's structure gives shorter stacks room to maneuver.

Alexandro Tricarico of Belgium sat on 1.6 million. Tricarico's $177,194 in lifetime earnings and two career final tables put him squarely in the category of players who can play, but haven't yet had the signature moment. This could be it.

Then there's the quiet story at the bottom of the leaderboard. Balakrishna Patur, who held nearly $1.98 million in lifetime earnings and eight career final tables, busted before two tables were set. Peter Cross, with $512,504 in lifetime cashes and six final tables of his own, went out 19th. The U.S. Circuit Championship isn't handing out free passes to experienced players. It's eating them.

What Makes This Event Different

The $1,700 U.S. Circuit Championship occupies a strange space on the WSOP schedule. It's a bracelet event, carrying all the weight that implies. But the field skews toward the regional warriors: players who accumulated points across WSOPC stops throughout the year, players whose best results came at properties most fans have never visited, players who grind the $400 buy-in level and view $1,700 as the big one.

Kuhn fits that profile perfectly. His bracelet, his two rings, and his $720K in earnings weren't built in the Poker Hall of Fame room at the Horseshoe. They were built one Circuit stop at a time, one modest buy-in at a time, accumulating results the way a regional salesman accumulates frequent-flyer miles.

Now all of those miles have converged on one final-day table in Las Vegas.

The Obstacle

The chips say Kuhn should win this. The math is heavily tilted in his favor. But 17 players still have cards, and several of them have stacks deep enough to play back.

Dicken's 6.71 million makes him the only player who can tangle with Kuhn without risking elimination on a single hand. Sun's 4.855 million gives him fold equity. Everyone else needs to find a spot and hope it holds.

Kuhn doesn't need to hope. He needs to keep doing what got him here: grinding, accumulating, showing up at properties nobody's watching, and stacking chips while the cameras point elsewhere.

The cameras are pointing at him now.