KBO standings race 2026: KT or Samsung for first? Samsung beats Doosan 6-4 to lock up the top two, and LG, KIA and Doosan fight for third to fifth

Samsung beat Doosan 6-4 on Saturday, October 3, and the same day KIA won 5-4 at LG. Those two games settled that KT and Samsung will finish first and second between them. Samsung had also beaten Hanwha 3-2 on Thursday, October 1. On the 1st KT won 7-5 at KIA, and on the 3rd it beat Lotte 5-0. LG lost 6-5 at SSG on the 1st, and Doosan beat NC 9-7 the same day. On the 3rd NC beat SSG 13-1 and Kiwoom won 7-2 at Hanwha. Our last update said that if Samsung won on both the 1st and the 3rd, a single LG loss would put Samsung in the top two, and that is what happened. Two races are left: KT and Samsung for first place, which goes straight to the Korean Series, and LG, KIA and Doosan for third to fifth.

Every figure here uses results through Saturday, October 3, when all five scheduled games were played, all of them now final. The figures for Sunday and Monday results come from feeding hypothetical results into the engine that builds this site's tables. A reachable finish is a boundary set by two records, the one a club finishes with if it wins every game it has left (its ceiling) and the one it finishes with if it loses them all (its floor), and the games-left counts assume a full 144-game season. Draws are left out of the winning percentage. None of this is a probability.

The top two are settled because Samsung's floor rose above the ceilings of LG and KIA. When KT beat KIA and Samsung beat Hanwha on the 1st, Samsung's floor of 81-60-3 (.574) climbed above KIA's ceiling of 81-61-2 (.570). On the 3rd, Samsung's win over Doosan and LG's loss to KIA took Samsung's floor to 82-59-3 (.582), past LG's ceiling of 82-61-1 (.573). Either of those two Saturday results alone would have done it. KT's floor of 85-55-4 (.607) is already above LG's ceiling. So KT cannot finish below second even if it loses all 6 games it has left, and neither can Samsung if it loses all 7 of its own. Samsung's reachable finish narrowed from first-to-fourth to first-to-third on the 1st and to first-or-second on the 3rd. KIA's went from second-to-fifth to third-to-fifth on the 1st, and LG's the same way on the 3rd. Further down, NC, SSG and Lotte will finish somewhere from sixth to eighth, Hanwha ninth and Kiwoom tenth.

Each place leads somewhere different. Under the format on the postseason page, first place waits in the Korean Series (best of seven) for the Playoff winner, and second waits in the Playoff (best of five) for the Semi-Playoff winner. Third waits in the Semi-Playoff (best of five) for the Wild Card winner. Fourth and fifth start in the Wild Card round: up to 2 games, all at the fourth seed's park, where fourth starts with a one-win head start and advances by winning once, while fifth must win twice. So KT's and Samsung's games left decide first place, and LG's, KIA's and Doosan's decide third, which skips the Wild Card round, and fourth, which hosts it.

First place is between KT (85-49-4) and Samsung (82-52-3). If no game is drawn, KT clinches first the moment its wins and Samsung's losses add up to 4. That is down from 6 in our last update by KT's two wins; Samsung won both its games and took nothing off. Four more wins in KT's last 6 would lift its floor to 89-51-4 (.636), above Samsung's ceiling of 89-52-3 (.631), while three would leave it at 88-52-4 (.629), short. The team page shows the same number: four wins clinch first for KT whatever else happens. Every Samsung loss lowers that ceiling (one loss takes it to 88-53-3, .624) and takes one win off what KT needs. Samsung, the other way, needs its wins and KT's losses to add up to 10. A game between the two counts on both sides, as a win for one and a loss for the other. They meet on Wednesday, October 7, at KT's park, and their head-to-head record and later meetings are on the team page and the schedule page. A draw also closes the gap, but by less than a win or a loss.

The two can also finish level. If KT goes 2-4-0 in its last 6 and Samsung 5-1-1 in its last 7, both finish 87-53-4, a result the remaining schedule allows. A two-team tie for first is decided by a one-game tiebreaker under the KBO rules, hosted, as the postseason page says, by the club with the better head-to-head record. This site's engine does not count first place as clinched while the two can still finish level, and the 4 above is the count at which Samsung can no longer even draw level with KT. For example, if KT beats Lotte on both the 4th and the 5th while Samsung loses one and draws one against Doosan, KT's floor and Samsung's ceiling are both 87-53-4, so first is not yet settled. A two-team tie anywhere from third to fifth is decided without an extra game, by head-to-head wins, then head-to-head runs, then the previous season's finish. A three-way tie follows the tie rules on the postseason page. The engine does not work out head-to-head order.

Third to fifth is between LG (75-61-1, 7 games left), KIA (73-61-2, 8 left) and Doosan (70-64-5, 5 left), and each of the three can still finish third, fourth or fifth. LG's ceiling is 82-61-1 (.573) and its floor 75-68-1 (.524); KIA's ceiling is 81-61-2 (.570) and its floor 73-69-2 (.514); Doosan's ceiling is 75-64-5 (.540) and its floor 70-69-5 (.504). If no game is drawn, the order is settled two clubs at a time. LG is sure to finish above Doosan once its wins and Doosan's losses add up to 3, and above KIA once its wins and KIA's losses add up to 7. KIA is sure to finish above Doosan once its wins and Doosan's losses add up to 4, and above LG once its wins and LG's losses add up to 9. Doosan needs its wins and the other club's losses to add up to 10 to be sure of finishing above LG or KIA, which means that even if Doosan wins all 5 games it has left, that club has to lose at least five times. The team pages agree: LG is sure of a top-four finish with three wins whatever else happens, and of third if it wins all 7; KIA is sure of the top four with four wins. Doosan needs help even if it wins out.

Those counts decide the places. Once LG is sure to finish above Doosan, LG cannot finish below fourth, so it would host any Wild Card round it plays, and Doosan cannot reach third. The same holds if KIA is sure to finish above Doosan. If LG and KIA both are, Doosan is fixed in fifth and plays the Wild Card round away. Third goes to the club that is sure to finish above both of the others. Head-to-head games count on both sides here too. On the 4th and 5th LG and KIA meet twice at LG's park, and Doosan and Samsung twice at Samsung's. Samsung plays at KIA on Tuesday, October 6, and Doosan at LG on Wednesday, October 7; the fixtures after that are on the schedule page.

Sunday, October 4, has five games: KIA at LG, Doosan at Samsung, Lotte at KT, SSG at NC and Kiwoom at Hanwha. The same five games are played again at the same parks on Monday, October 5. We ran all 243 results of Sunday's five games, draws included. None of them settles a new place that night, and every club's reachable finish stays exactly as it is now. The counts do move. If no game is drawn, a KT win over Lotte together with a Samsung loss to Doosan brings KT's count to 2, one of the two brings it to 3, and neither leaves it at 4. On the same terms, LG's count of 3 for finishing above Doosan drops by one if LG beats KIA and by one if Doosan loses to Samsung, and KIA's count of 4 drops by one if KIA beats LG and by one if Doosan loses. A Lotte-KT draw leaves KT's count where a KT win would, and a Doosan-Samsung draw leaves it where a Samsung win would.

We ran all ten games of Sunday and Monday together, draws included, 59,049 combinations. The earliest KT can clinch first is Monday, October 5: Samsung has to lose to Doosan on both days, and KT has to beat Lotte twice or win one and draw one. That is 2,187 of the 59,049, and no other result matters. Samsung would then be fixed in second. Samsung cannot clinch first by Monday whatever happens. In the race for third to fifth, LG is sure to finish above Doosan in 22,599. If no game is drawn, LG has to beat KIA twice while Doosan loses at least once to Samsung, or split with KIA while Doosan loses both. Counting each LG or Doosan draw as half, LG's wins and Doosan's losses need to reach 2.5. For example, if LG beats KIA twice and Doosan splits with Samsung, LG's floor of 77-66-1 (.538) rises above Doosan's ceiling of 74-65-5 (.532), and LG is then third or fourth and Doosan fourth or fifth. KIA is sure to finish above Doosan in 729, which takes KIA beating LG twice and Doosan losing both. KIA's floor of 75-67-2 (.528) then clears Doosan's ceiling of 73-66-5 (.525); one Doosan draw instead of a loss leaves Doosan's ceiling at 73-65-6 (.529) and the order open. The two cannot both happen. Because the two Doosan-Samsung games feed both races, KT clinching first and LG or KIA finishing sure above Doosan cannot both happen by Monday night either. Nobody can be sure of third by Monday, and Doosan cannot be fixed in fifth. In 33,534 every top-five range stays as it is.

How to read these numbers. A reachable finish is a boundary set by ceilings and floors: the best finish assumes a club wins every game it has left while its rivals lose theirs, and the worst the reverse. A club that can only draw level is not counted above you when finding your best finish, and is counted above you when finding your worst, so every count in this piece is the point at which a rival can no longer even finish level. The standings show each club's reachable finish, the magic number page the counts for each place, the fixtures the games left, the postseason page the bracket and tie rules, and the methodology page the working behind every figure. The what-if page lets you set any game still to be played. Each club's answer is on its team page: KT, Samsung, LG, KIA, Doosan.