The slickest of 'Rics wins the biggest of WSOP Circuit Main Events

WSOP Circuit TCH Social Main Event champion Eric Chang.

The latest epic series here in Austin was capped by a Main Event which shattered records, becoming the largest $1,700 USD buy-in Circuit Main Event ever held. Yet as big as the moment was for the champion, he wasn't letting the magnitude of the tournament change his approach.

“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.”

Comeback kid

It was a win that nearly didn’t happen. Several times, in fact.

“I was down to a big blind twice in this tournament,” said Chang, “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.”

Players who start a Day 2 259th out of 267 returnees aren’t supposed to win the tournament. But as the champion said, he doubled early in the day, and the rest is history.

He faced adversity late in his run as well, as after rising to the chip lead with just four players remaining, Chang was on the wrong end of a massive setup hand, where he held the second-nut flush to eventual runner-up Anil Javani’s nut flush.

The pot gave Javani a nearly five-to-one advantage over Chang, but he clawed back to draw nearly even for their heads-up match.

Just over an hour later, Chang was the champion.

Chang congratulates his heads-up opponent, Anil Jivani.

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A grinder’s gotta grind

Chang has now more than doubled his career tournament earnings in one massive, historic swoop, which should provide some outstanding content for his popular social media channels. And while acknowledging that he will obviously have something highlighting his run, he’s still committed to a series that he’s been working on for the last month.    

“We’ll do a big content week just around the series, and I have a bankroll challenge that I started 30 days ago, and we’re going to go back to that. You’ll see me in the 2/5 streets, and we’re going to get after it, because this one doesn’t count. I’ll try to keep competing and doing content, and trying to get better at the game and just put my time into this craft. I love this game.”

One rail leads to another

As mentioned, there was plenty of hype for the start-of-day chip leader, reigning WSOP Main Event champion, Lucas Jumalon, who brought his notoriously boisterous and supportive rail with him from the start of the day.

Another Main Event title was not to be for Lucas Jumalon.

The potential for the now familiar chants of ‘Ju, ju, ju-malu” at the end of the night was there, but their voices were silenced early in the day, as their guy crashed out in 14^th place. Still another outstanding run for the world champion, but disappointing nonetheless.

Instead, it was Chang’s rail bringing the noise at night’s end, echoing in the background of the TCH Live stream and helping to propel him to victory.

“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.”