Add Chris Brewer's name to the shortlist of players having a breakout summer at the World Series of Poker. Like Ike Haxton, high-roller regular Brewer was among the most notable pros to have never won WSOP gold. On Sunday, Brewer took down Event #69 of the 2023 WSOP, the $10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw Championship.
It was Brewer's second bracelet win this summer, making him and Chad Eveslage the only players to accomplish the double to date in this series, and it also vaulted him high on the WSOP's 2023 Player of the Year leaderboard. Brewer's win on Sunday also came with a $367,599 payout, though that pales compared to the $5,293,556 payday he collected two weeks ago when he took down Event #40, the $250,000 Super High Roller No-Limit Hold'em tourney.
That was the event in which Czech star Martin Kabrhel was accused of both real cheating and fake cheating by several other prominent pros in a multi-day conflagration that could even end up in a courtroom, based on public threats made by an attorney Kabrhel has retained. Brewer managed to avoid the spotlight in that messy situation, though he ended up walking away from that super-high-roller with the biggest payday of his career.
Brewer admitted after Sunday's win that the no-limit deuce-to-seven wasn't on the same scale. "The other one was a $250,000 tournament with $5 million on top," he told the WSOP. "I wanted to win the bracelet and it still means a lot, but the stakes were very different and it definitely was a lot less intense."
And the grind continues. Though he plans to step aside from the WSOP for a couple of major events at the Wynn Summer Classic, he still found time on Sunday evening to hop over to Event #75 of the WSOP, the $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better Championship. In a bit of an upset, though he didn't advance to today's Day 2.
He also ccan't be found at the venue today, even though the sparsely-attended Day 1A flight of the Main Event is underway. There's likely a good reason for that, however, as one of the biggest online bracelet tourneys of the series, Online Event #13: $5,300 No-Limit Hold'em High Roller Championship, began at 2 pm. All nine of Brewer's cashes in this summer's WSOP have come at the live tables, but Brewer has plenty of online experience, so it's no surprise if he hops in today's online high-roller, then plays the WSOP live Main Event later in the week.
