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 this week tell those stories and what quick opinions do we have?

$1,000,000 – Over the last year, partypoker have hosted some of the world’s biggest live tournaments. The biggest partypoker LIVE events have boasted massive prize pools and guaranteed $1 million for first place and this weekend, Sam Greenwood became the newest partypoker millionaire. Greenwood outlasted a huge 1,061-player field in Punta Cana to claim his second career seven-figure score and as the poker community heads towards the end of the year, it will be interesting to see how big partypoker LIVE events will be in 2018.

791 – While partypoker is already looking ahead to next year, the World Poker Tour isn’t onto 2018 just yet. That’s because the $10,000 WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic, which is one of the WPT’s biggest and arguably most prestigious events, closes the yearly calendar. Last year, 791 entrants built up a massive prize pool and there was nearly $2 million up top, making Five Diamond one of the year’s only events that awards seven-figure payouts for both 1^st and 2^nd place finishers.

1 – Early in 2017, Bryn Kenney took the top spot on the GPI Player of the Year leader board and since then, has put together one of the best statistical years in poker history. Kenney has cashed for just over $8 million in 2017 alone, but he may need to add to those numbers to secure POY honors. This time last year, Fedor Holz was in the driver’s seat and David Peters used a strong December to pass him to steal Player of the Year. This year, Stephen Chidwick, Koray Aldemir, and Adrian Mateos are Kenney’s top challengers, but it will take a strong push for any of those players to keep Kenney from ending 2017 as the world’s top poker player.

8 – Keeping with the “don’t look ahead” theme, there is tons to be excited about on PokerGO before the end of the year. Poker After Dark cash games continue through the end of November and return in December, along with the WPT Five Diamond final table, but we can’t help ourselves when it comes to the U.S. Poker Open. The eight-event high stakes series debuts in February of 2018 and boasts a schedule with nearly $200,000 in buy-ins. PokerGO will live stream the entire series, much like this year’s Poker Masters, but unlike Poker Masters, the USPO will give fans a chance to see the world’s best players compete in a variety of events, including Pot Limit Omaha and a $25K Mixed Game Championship.