Eric Chang Takes Down the Biggest WSOP Circuit Main Event Ever Held — And Beats the Reigning World Champ to Get There

A Record-Shattering Field in Austin

The WSOP Circuit stop at Texas Card House in Austin just produced the largest Main Event field in the tour's history. The $1,700 buy-in drew 2,090 entries and a $3,166,350 prize pool, the largest field ever for a Circuit main event at that price. That easily cleared the posted guarantee, and it capped off a run of growth that's becoming hard to ignore.

The number gets more impressive in context. Card Player reports the inaugural Austin stop in May drew 1,709 entries, with local pro Thomas Brabham winning $368,545. Four months later the turnout climbed more than 22 percent, and 315 players reached the money. That's not a one-off spike — it's a venue building real momentum in back-to-back stops.

Chang's Comeback, and Jumalon's Quick Exit

The winner, Texas pro Eric "Slick Ric" Chang, didn't have an easy road. Chang beat Anil Jivani heads-up after twice dropping to one big blind during the run. Starting Day 2 as one of the short stacks in the room, he fought back twice from the felt to claim his second career Circuit ring and a career-best $433,670 score.

The story also had a notable subplot. Reigning WSOP Main Event champion Lucas Jumalon — just weeks removed from his $10 million summer win in Las Vegas — entered the final day as the chip leader among 18 remaining players. 2026 Main Event champion Lucas Jumalon led the final day with 18 players left but busted in 14th for $19,030. It's a reminder of just how quickly fortunes swing in tournament poker, even for the game's newest world champion.

Why This Matters Beyond One Trophy

Texas Card House isn't a traditional casino — it's part of the state's club-based poker model, operating under a legal structure that's been tested and defended in court as the format has spread across Texas. The fact that a club venue can now host the single largest buy-in-matched field in WSOP Circuit history says something about where American live poker is heading outside the usual casino corridors of Nevada and New Jersey.

For players, that growth means more accessible stops, bigger overlays relative to buy-in, and more chances to pick up hardware without flying to a major market. It also means more volume: bigger fields produce longer days, deeper runs, and a lot more hands to review afterward.

The Takeaway for US Grinders

Many of the players grinding regional live series like this one are also putting in volume online between trips — often on club-based apps like ClubGG, which has become a popular on-ramp for players who want cash-game and tournament reps without leaving home. If that's part of your routine, it's worth treating your online sessions with the same scrutiny you'd give a live Day 2 run.

A few things worth tracking as the fall live-and-online calendar heats up:

• Your real win rate across formats, not just how a session "felt"
• Which stakes or game types are actually profitable versus which ones you just play the most
• How often deep runs convert to final tables versus min-cashes

That's where a dedicated ClubGG tracker earns its keep — pulling your ClubGG hand histories into DriveHUD 2 or 3 so you can see graphs, win rate, and leak reports instead of guessing. If you're setting that up for the first time, the ClubGG tracker page walks through the import, and the setup guide covers getting DriveHUD configured correctly from the start.

Record fields like Austin's are a good sign for American live poker's health. Whether you're chasing a ring in person or grinding volume online to fund the next trip, the fundamentals stay the same: track the real numbers, not the memory of how the session went.