Men Lie, Women Lie, Numbers Don't

Facts and figures. They make the world go round and, more often than not, tell a story without letting opinions or biases get in the way. Which numbers from the past week tell that story and what quick opinions do we have?

$429,664 – Maryland’s Christian Harder broke through to claim the PokerStars Championship Bahamas Main Event on Saturday but we will leave that winner’s story to Remko Rinkema. The storyline we’re interested in, the prize pool. The event had almost 200 less players than it did a year ago and compared to the biggest PCA Main Event in history, Harder’s haul was just better than what 6^th place received in 2009. The poker community and landscape has significantly changed since then, with the biggest change being PokerStars paying 20% of the Main Event field. Personally, I believe that is a good thing for the sustainability for the game, no so much for headlines though.

5,280 – Oklahoma has been home to some of the biggest World Series of Poker Circuit stops and events over the last few years, which is why next week’s Main Event is one of our ‘Must Play Events’ for 2017, and they continued to break records this week. 5,280 players came out for their $1,000,000 GTD event, which was easily the biggest WSOP Circuit field in history. A modest $365 buy-in should net the eventual winner a massive six-figure score.

15% – The second installment of the ‘Brains vs. Artificial Intelligence’ heads up poker match kicked off earlier this week in Pittsburgh and so far, 18,040 of 120,000 hands have been played. That’s almost one-sixth of the total sample size we’re going to get and so far, the machines are winning. Libratus is up $181,140 and while that is a good early start, it still has a decent way to go to match the $732,713 that the humans won against Claudico in 2015.

$1,733,411 – ‘Week in Numbers’ Question of the Day: Who was the biggest winner from this year’s PokerStars Championship Bahamas series? Jason Koon, Christian Harder, Bryn Kenney or Charlie Carrel? If you answered Bryn Kenney, you are correct! The New York pro crushed, opening the week with a final table run in the $100,000 Super High Roller, before winning a $50,000 event, followed by a $25,000 event. Kenney now has over $5,500,000 in Atlantis Resort & Casino winnings and looks to be taking no prisoners in 2017.

28.22 – Matt Ryan put up the most Draft Kings fantasy points on Saturday, thanks to 338 yards and three touchdowns against the Seattle Seahawks. Amazingly though, Ryan’s fantasy point total doubled Brock Osweiler’s QBR from his game against the New England Patriots. How do you earn a 13.9 QBR? Throw for 198 yards, one touchdown and three interceptions. More on Brock Osweiler later this week.