Today's Big Question
Eric Chang Won a Record Austin Main Event. The World Champion Made $19,030.
What happened
Eric Chang, a Texas-based pro and Columbia graduate, won the $1,700 World Series of Poker Circuit main event at Texas Card House Austin on Monday for $433,670 and his second Circuit ring. The 2,090 entries made it the largest field a $1,700 Circuit main event has ever drawn, building a prize pool of $3,166,350 against a $2 million guarantee, with 315 players paid. Chang was among the shortest stacks at the start of Day 2 and sat fifth of nine when the final table began. He doubled through Eric Tang with a turned ace and a rivered diamond flush, then doubled again with queen-nine for two pair and a full house. He eliminated Tang in fifth with ace-king of diamonds. Heads up against Anil Jivani, his ace-nine survived a nine-eight-deuce-queen-queen board against ace-five. Lucas Jumalon, who won the 2026 WSOP main event and its $10 million first prize in early August, returned to tournament poker in Austin and came back for the third and final day as chip leader with 18 players left. He bet all but one big blind of his stack on the river against Taylor Fortini, folded to the shove, then lost the rest when his flopped pair of sixes ran into Fortini's turned flush. He finished 14th for $19,030.
Why it matters
A $10 million title buys a man exactly the same seat as everyone else four months later, and the seat does not remember him. Austin's turnout was up more than 22 percent on the room's first Circuit main event in May, which drew 1,709 entries and paid Thomas Brabham $368,545, so the format that paid the world champion $19,030 is the fastest-growing thing on the Circuit. The final table was nine players deep and only one of them, Brant Jolly, had ever earned more than $1 million in his career. Jolly finished ninth. The other eight arrived with lifetime results between $156,702 and $848,440 and one of them left with a payday worth more than eight times his previous best.
