John Kim: From a $0.80 Satellite to a $43,000 First-Place Win

Author

Juan David Vargas Quiceno, aka Vargoso

Published

8/21/2026

John Kim turned $0.80 into nearly $43,000. On ACR Poker, where he plays using the nickname "DotardEatLysol," the US player went from joining a Level 1 Survivor Flip with an 80-cent buy-in to winning the $2,650 Mini Phil's Thrill.

From $0.80 to $2,650 tournament

John "DotardEatLysol" Kim won Sunday’s $2,650 Mini Phil’s Thrill tournament at ACR Poker, advancing to first place after starting in the cheapest satellite.

The poker room offers players Steps in an exclusive Survivor Flip format. These tournaments give players a chance to win tickets to MTTs with buy-ins ranging from $22 to $2,650, starting with minimal entry fees.

Kim played through a four-level Survivor Flip with a starting buy-in of just $0.80 and won a $2,650 ticket at the final level. John decided to use the ticket in the tournament named after ACR Poker CEO Phil Nagy.
The player himself admits that this was the moment that changed his mindset:

"When I won the first 80-cent flip and then made it all the way to the $2,650 ticket, I felt that with this kind of luck, I had a chance to win once I entered a serious tournament."

As a reminder, eight players compete at each level of a Survivor Flip. At the start of each hand, players are dealt three hole cards, one of which they should discard. The entire board is then dealt at once, and the player with the weakest hand is eliminated from the tournament. This means that "DotardEatLysol" avoided having the worst hand for at least 32 consecutive hands.

Mini Phil’s Thrill attracted 61 entries and generated a $152,500 prize pool. For 47-year-old Kim, the $42,700 first-place prize was the biggest cash of his career. Previously, his best result had been $1,400 in a $21 tournament.

ABC-poker

At the beginning of the tournament, Kim's strategy was simple: wait for strong hands and try to accumulate as many chips as possible before late registration ended.

At the same time, Kim wasn't afraid to take risks when he had a strong hand.

"I wasn't afraid to play for my stack until the end of the reentry period because I knew that if I avoided those situations, it would be much harder for me to hold on to a good chip count."

Mini Phil's Thrill is one of the most expensive tournaments at ACR Poker, so it's no surprise that its participants included well-known professionals, such as Chris Moneymaker, Alex Foxen, and Christine Foxen.

For John, meeting such players was special.

"I was so impressed by these players and just prayed to the poker gods that they would get knocked out."

One of the highlights of the tournament was a hand on the bubble in the top eight, with only six players expected to make the money.

Mini Phils Thrill Aa Preflop All in John Kim

Kim, with 376,000 chips, was second in chips, almost half the chip leader. The short stack, holding A8 of diamonds, immediately moved all-in from middle position, betting 10BB. On the button, John, holding pocket aces, decided to simply call. The chip leader considered this call a sign of weakness and immediately moved all-in.

John described his emotions this way:

"I started shaking violently. Even the minimum payout was very important to me, but I still called."

The opponent had pocket sixes, the board brought no surprises, and Kim knocked out the short stack and became a grand chip leader. Just a few hands later, he took down another short stack, bursting the bubble.

From minimum payout to top-1

Although John had accumulated more than half of the tournament’s chips after the money bubble burst, it took another hour of play to determine the winner. Nobody wanted to take unnecessary risks, and almost every hand ended preflop.

Lithuanian poker pro Matas Cimbolas, who has nearly $9 million in live tournament earnings, performed best during this stage. He picked up strong hands at the right moments and eliminated four opponents on his way to heads-up, including Alex Foxen in third place.

Matas entered heads-up as the chip leader and even managed to increase his advantage to 3 times after successfully calling his opponent’s bluff.

But then Kim showed he could read his opponent too, winning a big pot with third pair on a paired, three-suited board. In the next hand, the US player won a preflop all-in with Q♣8♠ vs A♠K♦: the board showed an eight and a queen.

The decisive move was 8♥8♣ against A♠4♥. Tsimbolas flopped a four-high and a straight draw, but subsequent streets failed to bring him the outs he needed, and John Kim emerged victorious.

Over 20 years in poker

Kim came to poker during the boom that began after Chris Moneymaker won the 2003 WSOP Main Event. John had been playing online since the Full Tilt Poker days, and in 2021, he signed up for ACR Poker. However, poker isn't his full-time job. He continues to work full-time as a sales assistant and plays in his spare time.

Before his victory at Mini Phil's Thrill, his biggest online win was around $1,400 in a $21 buy-in tournament. Kim also mentioned that he feels more comfortable in MTTs with smaller fields.

A big win will primarily help John solve household chores: buying a new car and moving out of his relatives' house.