by Mario Alfonsi | Published on Jan 25, 2021 | Updated on Jan 25, 2021
The WSOP.com Player of the Year (POY) title has been awarded to Yong “LuckySpewy1” Kwon, who plays from New Jersey, United States. The 31-year-old received a WSOP.com POY ring, plus $10,000 in cash for winning the accolade.
Kwon, a native of South Korea, has been playing poker since college, but he developed interest in the game when he was about 10 years old, when he moved to NJ with his family.
Kwon was thankful for the recognition he received but admitted that he was not focused on wining the POY title.
Kwon had a reputation in the online poker community for putting in the hours and playing as many days as possible online. He acknowledges the fact that in order to be a successful poker pro, you need to invest a lot of time and hard work honing your kills.
Kwon has done well on the online poker circuit. Prior to being named 2020 WSOP.com POY, Kwon was already a bracelet winner, having won the 2019 WSOP Event #7: $400 NLH Online for $165,263. He was able to achieve this feat by playing for about 14 straight hours. Just a week after that victory, he went on to win another WSOP.com event for $121,000, bringing his 10-day earnings to more than $300,000.
Kwon has also captured several other online titles throughout the years, including winning an event at the 2020 World Poker Tour Online Borgata Series which ran on the partypoker US Network. He also has a couple of PokerStars NJCOOP titles under his name. So far, he has amassed over $3.8 million in online tournament winnings.
Kwon began his online grind playing strictly pot-limit Omaha cash, as well as MTTs. For the past six years, the 31-year-old has played nearly 1.6 million hands of PLO cash, and about one million hands in MTTs. There’s no doubt he’s one of the most successful volume beasts in online poker out there today, and he intends to continue grinding long hours at the virtual tables, as well as play more live real money poker to achieve more success as a poker pro.
WSOP.com POY Final Results (Top 10)
The final tally of points shows Kwon at the top with 73,039.91 points. His closest rival was Krista “Pollux” Gifford who earned 63,265.86 points. Coming in 3rd was Anthony “boom81boom” Chin with 59,173.24 points, followed by David “dehhhhh” Coleman and Andrew “WATCHGUY42” Lichtenberger in 4th and 5th place with 58,162.66 and 57,631.62 points respectively.
