Jacket On or Jacket Off, Yunkyu Song Undeniable En Route to WPT POY

Yunkyu Song walked into Thunder Valley Casino Resort in late March as an unknown entity on the World Poker Tour, and the poker world in general for that matter. This unassuming young man from South Korea, who now calls Washington home, had just turned 25 years old and no one had any idea what they would be in for with Song over the next nine months.

During that WPT Rolling Thunder event, long before anyone knew Song would go on to become the WPT Season 22 Player of the Year, there were two initial impressions. One is that Song was always readying himself for the worst possible outcome, throwing on his signature puffy black jacket and backpack with every all in. And the other was his unbelievable knack for accumulating a spectacular amount of chips in a short amount of time.

Everything that Song would come to be known for over the course of 2024 was on display, even as he saw an extraordinary chip lead evaporate at the final table of WPT Rolling Thunder and settled for fourth place. That drastic reversal of fortune that might mentally set other players back for months or longer didn’t linger very long in the mind of Song, who quickly headed off towards WPT Voyage and then South Florida.

Beyond the boundaries of the WPT Song picked up six-figure cashes in Texas and then Las Vegas, but for all of his life-altering successes through the halfway point of the year he lacked one thing – a signature victory.

That would all come to fruition in October, when Song made the most of a trip to Montreal and won the WPT Prime Playground Championship. Just a few weeks later Song doubled down and nearly ran away with the POY race before settling for the runner-up finish in the WPT bestbet Scramble in Jacksonville, adding the biggest live tournament cash of his life to what would ultimately be a $1.3 million year.

But perhaps the best measures of who Song is as a player and as a person came out in the little moments in between. In Jacksonville, for example, when it had become clear just how much of an impression Song had made on his fellow poker players in terms of his abilities and his theatrics. On the way towards locking in the final table, Francis Anderson – a player who also made quite an impression during his WPT Season 22 campaign – asked to borrow Song’s lucky jacket for an all in.

It was also evident as the prospects for other players hoping to pass Song in the WPT POY standings began to dwindle. Dylan Smith made the most noise with a spectacular push late in the year, winning the WPT Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open after making the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown earlier in the year. Smith cut through yet another ridiculously large field to make it down to the last two tables of the WPT Prime Championship at Wynn Las Vegas, finishing 14th, and then cashed the WPT World Championship as well, but he would fall just short in second.

If it seemed as though Song played things a little bit aloof and nonchalant through Smith’s bold challenge, Song had a moment that showed how much he was paying attention and cared about the outcome as the number of WPT Season POY contenders dwindled to just one.

Fabian Gumz, who won the WPT Prime Slovakia championship earlier in the year, stood to pass Song with one outcome in the WPT World Championship – an outright victory.

During a break in the action with just two tables remaining in the field, Gumz stood on the rail of the main streaming stage in the Encore Ballroom chatting with some friends. Song slid quietly up the stairs during a moment away from another tournament he was playing in the room to congratulate Gumz on his run thus far.

Song had been sweating the results and knew exactly how the POY race could play out. But beyond any trash talk or friendly banter, including Gumz jokingly suggesting he might gift the trophy to Song even if he were to win, it was clear in that one moment just how much of an impact Song had made on the game and his fellow players in less than a single year.

Gumz would go on to finish 12th, locking Song into WPT Season 22 Player of the Year honors, but in as true a sign to his dedication to the game as any Song immediately returned to the last few remaining events during the WPT World Championship festival at Wynn Las Vegas and cashed twice more.

And in the same way he did in every WPT event, every tournament with a buy-in from $400 up to $10,000 and beyond in 2024, Song pulled on his jacket and bag for every all in through the very last one of the year – preparing himself for the worst, hoping for the best and landing on the latter far more often than any other result.