Eric "Slick Ric" Chang has won the WSOP Circuit Main Event at TCH Social Austin, banking $433,670 and a gold ring after outlasting a 2,090-entry field — the largest $1,700 buy-in Circuit Main Event ever staged. The tournament ran September 17-21 and built a $3,166,350 prize pool, paying 315 places.
For a Texas-based player who has built much of his profile as a content creator, the win is transformational. Chang's career tournament earnings now sit at $834,976, meaning a single result more than doubled everything he had banked before it.
The comeback nobody scripted
The headline number undersells how close this came to never happening. Chang returned for Day 2 in 259th place out of 267 players — a stack that, on paper, is a min-cash waiting to happen rather than a title contender.
"I was down to a big blind twice in this tournament," Chang said afterwards, "and we somehow sunrunned our way here. I said from Day 2 that if I doubled, I'm going to win this tournament, and I really felt it. So, it's a dream come true."
He did double early on Day 2, and from there the run had the shape that big-field tournaments reward: survive, accumulate, and give yourself a chance to be there when the structure flattens out.
The late stages were not smooth either. Four-handed, after climbing into the chip lead, Chang ran the second-nut flush into eventual runner-up Anil Jivani's nut flush — a classic cooler that handed Jivani close to a five-to-one chip advantage. Chang ground it back to near-even before winning the heads-up match a little over an hour later.
That kind of swing is the single best argument for understanding ICM and how chip equity converts into money at a final table. Losing a setup hand four-handed at a Circuit Main Event is not just a chip transfer — it is a large real-money swing between pay jumps, and the correct response is almost never to force the recovery in one pot.
Final table payouts
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Eric Chang | $433,670 |
| 2 | Anil Jivani | $289,110 |
| 3 | Venkat Chivukula | $211,440 |
| 4 | Ryan Brown | $156,455 |
| 5 | Eric Tang | $116,580 |
| 6 | Taylor Fortini | $87,200 |
| 7 | Simon Britton | $66,960 |
| 8 | Kimberly Stone | $51,540 |
| 9 | Brant Jolly | $40,100 |
A record field, and what it says about Texas
The 2,090 entries represent growth of 381 entries over the spring WSOP Circuit Main Event at the same venue — a jump of roughly 22% in about six months, at the same buy-in, in the same room.
That matters beyond one tournament. The Circuit has historically been anchored by Caesars-affiliated properties in established gaming states, and $1,700 Main Events there typically draw somewhere between several hundred and low four figures of entries. Austin producing the biggest $1,700 Circuit Main Event on record, and doing it twice in a calendar year, suggests a regional player base that is not simply visiting for a series but living there and playing regularly.
Chang is only the second WSOP Circuit Main Event champion crowned in Texas, following Thomas Brabham, who took the spring title at the same venue.
For players weighing where to spend a tournament budget, the practical read is that mid-major Circuit stops are no longer automatically softer or smaller than the marquee ones. A 2,090-entry field at $1,700 has a top prize larger than plenty of $3,000 and $5,000 events on the same calendar, and the field composition at a regional stop is usually more recreational than a Las Vegas high roller. That combination — big prize pool, wide field — is exactly what a tournament grinder is looking for.
The champion who did not get the ending
The day was supposed to belong to someone else. Lucas Jumalon, the reigning WSOP Main Event champion, began the final day as chip leader with the loud, organised rail that became a fixture of his summer run in Las Vegas.
Instead, Jumalon busted in 14th place. It was another deep run in another enormous field — a useful reminder that even the best day of a player's life does not change how variance works in the next tournament — but the chants never came.
Chang, meanwhile, made a point of crediting his own supporters. "I was the only person in the final five with a rail, and every time I got tired, I had them screaming in my ear and picking me up. It's special. One of my best friends drove here to come sweat me for four hours, so I had to do it. There was no other way."
What this means for players
Three practical takeaways come out of this result.
Short stacks are not dead money. Starting a day 259th of 267 is grim, but in a structure with 315 places paid and a large field, a single double-up early in a day resets the entire calculation. Players who fold their way toward a min-cash from that position are trading a small guaranteed gain for a large expected one. This is where a clear-eyed view of pot odds and stack-preservation thresholds beats gut feeling.
Regional buy-ins are carrying real money now. A $433,670 first prize from a $1,700 entry is a 255-to-1 return on buy-in. Compare that to the WSOP Circuit's traditional footprint and the argument for travelling to the biggest regional field rather than the most prestigious venue gets stronger. Our cash games vs tournaments breakdown covers the bankroll side of that decision.
Bankroll discipline still governs everything. Chang mentioned he is returning to a bankroll challenge he started 30 days ago, and that he will be back in $2/$5 games — "because this one doesn't count." That is a healthier attitude than it might sound. A single large score does not change a player's edge, and treating it as separate from the working bankroll is exactly what bankroll management advises.
For players who want to put in volume on similar structures without the travel, most of the major online rooms run deep-stack tournament series with comparable payout ladders. Americas Cardroom and BetOnline both run regular large-field events, and our real money poker guide covers how to pick a room by the games actually running rather than by the headline guarantee.
Where the Circuit goes next
The WSOP Circuit now spans five countries and a much wider set of venues than it did even two years ago, and Austin's numbers make a strong case for Texas remaining a permanent anchor on the schedule. Two record-setting Mains in a single calendar year is not a fluke of timing; it is a market signal.
Chang, for his part, seems unbothered by the scale of what he just did. "I wasn't trying to be special; I was just trying to do my thing. I had a lot of pain this year. I punted a lot in a lot of different formats, and that pain made me think I didn't have to do anything special; I just needed to be here and just execute everything I've been studying."
That is as good a summary of tournament poker as any champion has offered recently: the work happens away from the table, and the result is mostly out of your hands.
Sources: Poker.org