The Circuit is Back!

Even with registration long closed down, there's still a good deal of chatter going on about the staggering turnout this event garnered.

As the players filed into the room this morning, a few members of the staff told us they hoped for 700 runners. Piece of cake. This Main Event has attracted a whopping 872 players, the largest field for a championship event in the history of the WSOP-C. In fact, the previous record was a paltry 538, set in 2008 at Caesars in Las Vegas. This record-setting field has generated a prize pool of more than $1.2 million, with almost a quarter-million of that going to the winner. Where else besides the WSOP can you pick up a check that big for an investment as small as $1,500?

This Main Event record comes just one week after the crushing of another impressive WSOPC record. Event #1 drew a monumental field of 1,611 players, making it the largest tournament in WSOP-C history. That event was nearly 200 runners larger than the previous record, and it really solidifies the greater Chicago area's place as one of the premier poker markets in the country.

It's still awfully early to make a huge story out of this, but there's no doubt that the WSOP-C is reaping some fruitage from the seeds it has been sowing for six months or so. Each of the first two events this season (Council Bluffs and Southern Indiana) experienced noteworthy growth this year, but nothing like the boom we've seen here in Hammond. The move to implement a point system and a leaderboard make this feel like a true extension of the WSOP, and the promise of national television coverage (for the first time since 2006) seems to be bringing out some of the pros who might otherwise skip events like this.