Men Lie, Women Lie, Numbers Don't: ARIA High Rollers Edition

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 past week tell that story and what quick opinions do we have?

68 – Across three ARIA $25K High Roller events, 68 players competed for over $1,300,000 in combined prize pools. Poker Central wasn’t there to bring you the action but it was more of the same, with ARIA regulars and High Roller crushers bossing in the last ARIA series before next month’s pre-Super High Roller Bowl stretch of events.

$414,961 – After opening the weekend with a win, Jake Schindler then nearly went back-to-back on Friday night. Schindler collected $248,545 for his second ARIA High Roller victory of 2017 on Thursday and then made another final table and notched another podium finish 24 hours later. Alas, he’d earn a modest $166,416 for a runner-up result, pushing his weekend haul over $400,000.

3 – The player that denied Schindler back-to-back victories? Brian Rast, who recorded his third ARIA High Roller win of 2017, and dating back to last summer, he has five wins in events with $25,000-$100,000 buy-ins. That is likely bad news for those hoping to make their way to the Super High Roller Bowl winner’s circle for the first time, as the white-hot Rast won in 2015 and looks like he is carrying a lot of momentum into the year’s biggest event.

$20,000,000 – Along with claiming another ARIA title this weekend, Brian Rast also moved over the $20 million mark in terms of career earnings and he now sits in the top-ten of the all-time money list. Nearly $11.5 million have come in ARIA-based events, including an over $7 million score in the 2015 Super High Roller Bowl and if Rast goes deep in that event again, he could find himself pushing into the all-time top-five.

66% – ARIA High Rollers aren’t supposed to be easy but Bryn Kenney makes them look just that. After opening the year on a tear in the Bahamas, Kenney has continued to dominate domestically, recording scores in six of nine 2017 ARIA High Rollers. That’s a success rate of 66% and while Kenney had a handful of cashes going into the weekend, he had yet to record a win. That all changed on Saturday, when he earned a $300,000 score, the title and also moved over $15 million in career earnings, with nearly $3.5 million of that total coming through the first quarter of 2017.