Naoya Kihara has spent most of his career as a respectable footnote in WSOP history: one bracelet, won back in 2012, and not much since. That footnote is being rewritten in Las Vegas this summer. As of June 17, the Japanese pro sits third in the 2026 World Series of Poker Player of the Year standings with 1,686 points — and the series has not even reached its halfway mark.
Two bracelets did the heavy lifting. Kihara took down the $10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball Championship and then added the $10,000 Limit Seven Card Stud Championship, a pair of brutal mixed-game titles that reward range and patience over fireworks. For a player whose only previous gold came 14 years ago, doubling up in a single summer is the kind of run that turns a quiet veteran into a Player of the Year contender.
The two men ahead of him
Kihara is chasing a fast-moving pack. Poker Hall of Famer Nick Schulman leads at 2,002 points, most of it banked when he captured his eighth career bracelet in $1,500 H.O.R.S.E. after a runner-up finish in $1,500 Limit Badugi. Behind him is Alex Foxen at 1,902, who won the $10,000 Super Turbo Bounty for his fourth bracelet — in the same stretch his wife Kristen claimed her sixth. Foxen also banked a sixth-place finish in the $100,000 High Roller for $522,347 along the way.
That is the company Kihara is keeping. Germany’s Dennis Weiss is level with him on 1,686, and the rest of the top ten reads like a who’s who of grinders: Justin Liberto, Chris Hunichen, two-time POY Shaun Deeb, Stephen Hubbard, Josh Arieh and Richard Alsup. Deeb, remarkably, sits seventh on the back of a single cash.
An Asian first within reach
No player from Asia has ever won the WSOP Player of the Year award. Kihara, already the first Japanese player to win a bracelet when he broke through in 2012, is now the closest any Asian pro has come to the title at this stage of a series. With roughly 55 bracelets still to be handed out before the Main Event, the points board is far from settled — and mixed-game specialists like Kihara tend to find spots deep into the schedule when the smaller fields thin out.
The maths is simple enough: 316 points separate Kihara from the lead, and a single deep run in a championship event can swing that overnight. He has already proven he can close. The question for the back half of the summer is whether he can keep pace with Schulman’s volume and Foxen’s high-roller firepower.
For now, an Asian name sitting third on the WSOP Player of the Year board is its own headline. We’ll be tracking where Kihara lands as the bracelets keep falling.