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The incredible year that Chris Brewer is having got a whole lot better on Sunday night when he won Event #40: $250,000 Super High Roller at the 2023 World Series of Poker. Brewer scored a huge sum of $5,293,556 and his first-ever WSOP gold bracelet.

“I’ve always been a really competitive person,” Brewer said. “I grew up being an athlete. I went to Oregon because I wanted to be at the best track school in the nation. I wanted to see if I was good enough to be at the Olympics. Honestly, it’s not something I’ve spoken about a ton, but I left something on the table in track. I think all my teammates would agree. I wasn’t lazy, but maybe 95% and I never gave it my all. It’s always something I think I’m going to regret. I’m never going to break four minutes in the mile and it bothers me. I think in poker that when I’m done, whatever I am, I never want to feel like I didn’t try my best to be the best I could be.”

In Event #40: $250,000 Super High Roller, Brewer came out on top of a field of 69 entries that included Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Isaac Haxton, and Stephen Chidwick.

Prior to this event, Brewer had won a little more than $3,700,000 in 2023. He had two huge scores at the EPT Paris festival to kick off the successful year that includes six six-figure scores from Triton Poker Series events, five U.S. Poker Open cashes, and a third-place finish in the $25,000 Heads-Up Championship here at the WSOP. Not even halfway through the year and Brewer has already amassed more than $9,000,000 in live tournament winnings according to TheHendonMob.com. To date, no one has won more than Brewer in 2023.

2023 WSOP Event #40 Final Table Results

Place Player Country Prize
1st Chris Brewer United States $5,293,556
2nd Artur Martirosyan Russia $3,271,666
3rd Martin Kabrhel Czech Republic $2,279,038
4th Alex Kulev Bulgaria $1,632,005
5th Chance Kornuth United States $1,202,318
6th Dan Smith United States $912,022
7th David Peters United States $712,953
8th Brandon Steven United States $574,899
9th Steven Veneziano United States $478,663

Nine players returned for Day 3 of the $250,000 Super High Roller event. All of them were in the money and guaranteed $478,663. First to bust on the day was Steven Veneziano, and he was followed out the door by Brandon Steven, who was last year’s second-place finisher in this event.

David Peters went out in seventh place and it was a brutal beat when his ace-nine lost out Chance Kornuth’s ace-eight due to Kornuth running out a flush. Dan Smith also took a bit of a beat to bust whe he went out in sixth place. Smith had three-bet jammed all in with the ace-queen of diamonds and Martin Kabrhel, the opener, called with ten-six of diamonds. A six flopped and Kabrhel’s hand held from there.

Kornuth began the day as the chip leader, but his run came to an end in fifth place. He was all in with king-five against the ace-ten of clubs for Alex Kulev. Kornurth was able to turn a pair of fives, but the river gave Kulev a better pair to eliminate Kornuth. Kulev’s run didn’t go past the final four. He got all in with queen-jack against Artur Martirosyan’s pocket eights. Martirosyan flopped an eight and held from there.

Out in third place was Kabrhel. He raised for almost all of his chips from the small blind with queen-two of clubs and Martirosyan woke up with ace-king from the big blind. Martirosyan moved all in, Kabrhel called, and a king-five-two-jack-ten board sent Kabrhel to the payout desk.

Heads-up play saw Martirosyan begin with just about a 3-to-1 chip lead over Brewer. After a bit of back-and-forth play, Brewer was able to double into the chip lead when his pocket threes held up against Martirosyan’s ace-ten after the money went in preflop. Not long after, the final hand took place that saw Brewer spike a wild turn and river to grab the win.

On the final hand, Martirosyan raised on the button, Brewer jammed from the big blind, and Martirosyan called. He had ace-king and was dominating Brewer’s ace-seven. The flop was king-nine-five with two spades and Martirosyan had the king of spades. The eight of spades came on the turn, meaning Brewer could only win with a non-spade six on the river. As fate would have it, the six of diamonds found the river and Brewer had won it all.

“I was shocked it came,” Brewer said of the final river card. “I was just excited. I was happy. Today was a long day. It was a lot of play.”

Brewer Moves To Second On PGT Leaderboard

Rank Player Country Winnings Points
1 Isaac Haxton United States $2,796,615 1,436
2 Chris Brewer United States $1,304,314 991
3 Cary Katz United States $1,355,274 988
4 Chance Kornuth United States $1,080,914 913
5 Sam Soverel United States $1,188,861 880
6 Sean Winter United States $1,210,370 863
7 Jeremy Ausmus United States $1,150,100 859
8 Ben Lamb United States $967,150 774
9 Alex Foxen United States $1,546,024 750
10 Jans Arends Netherlands $1,215,864 700

In addition to the gold bracelet and $5,293,556 in prize money, Brewer shot up the PGT leaderboard thanks to the victory and is now second overall behind only Isaac Haxton.

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WSOP, World Series of Poker, Chris Brewer, 2023 WSOP, WSOP 2023