Mike Shin is on a tear. The 2019 Mid-States Poker Tour Player of the Year race is almost a two-horse race at this point between Mike and his nearest competitor Brian Wilson. Shin possesses a 775-point lead over his next closest competitor, thanks to his win in January at the Majestic Star Casino in East Chicago, Illinois, for $68,593 and also a 3rd-place finish at this summer’s Venetian Main Event for a cool $334,000 last month, and after Wilson it’s another 1,000 points before you get to Brian Hou in 3rd. For reference, a tournament’s winner will probably earn about 1,400 points towards POY, depending on the event’s size.

Shin is the only member of the top ten in the POY race in attendance today for Day 1A of the Iowa State Championship, and recently took out Alex Winter. You might know him better as “Alex F’n Winter,” a Roseville, Minnesota resident who burst onto the MSPT scene last April and has been racking up final tables ever since. But this was not Winter’s day, as Shin took him down.

In blind-versus blind action, Shin went all in for Winters’ 25,000 or so chips and Winters called with . Shin flipped over . The showed up right away in the window, and the run-out came Winter hit the rail. Shin still has a lot of work left to do, however, as he only has about 70,000 in chips at last check, well behind the chip leaders.