Men Lie, Women Lie, Numbers Don't

Facts and figures. They make the world go around 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?

904 – We mentioned during the first-ever Poker Masters series that given the state of poker in 2017, it is hard for anything to truly be new. While the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino has been home to big events before, it has never played host to the WSOP Circuit. The new stop drew just over 900 players for the $1,675 buy-in Main Event, building an over $1.3 million prize pool, which should be one of the bigger WSOP Circuit stops when the 2017-2018 season is said and done.

$204,800 – Seminole is a brand-new stop for the WSOP Circuit and the event crushed it’s $1 million guarantee. Maryland Live! is a relatively new stop for the World Poker Tour, WPT Maryland at Live! Casino debuted during Season XIV, but after beating a guarantee last year, Live! bit off a little more than it could chew this year. The sizable 561-player field drew more entrants than the 2016 version of the event, but thanks to a $2 million guarantee, there was an over $200,000 overlay.

$1,624,502 – An event that didn’t overlay, the 2017 World Championship of Online Poker Main Event. The $5,200 buy-in drew just under 2,200 entrants and built up a nearly $11 million prize pool, with the Netherlands’ Steven “SvZff” van Zadelhoff earning the lion’s share for his WCOOP Main Event win. The Dutchman won $1.6 million, without a negotiated deal, to join an illustrious fraternity of WCOOP Main Event winners that includes Fedor Holz, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, and JC Tran.

2 – Tran won the WCOOP Main Event in 2006, but since then has won nearly everything else there is to win in poker. The Californian almost won his third World Poker Tour title last month, but was denied at the WPT Legends of Poker final table. That leaves Tran with two WPT wins, two WSOP bracelets, and two WSOP Circuit rings, after he won the first-ever WSOP Circuit High Roller at Thunder Valley last week.  

6 – While there are major tournament series running around the country and globe over the next month, the biggest games are still on PokerGO. New Poker After Dark episodes return next week and more PAD is set to stream later in the month as well. Lineups and game formats will be announced shortly, so make sure to follow Poker Central and PokerGO to stay up to date on everything and anything Poker After Dark.