Before August 2021, Chris Brewer had only ever cashed a poker tournament in the United States. The former collegiate runner at the University of Oregon burst onto the High Roller scene in late 2020 before rising to the very top to battle for top honors.
And honors soon came. A WPT Online Series High Roller title in May of 2021 was only the beginning, as he soon bagged another at the 2021 SHRPO before winning a $25,000 High Roller at the 2021 Poker Masters.
EPT Prague Success
Brewer was in action during the recent European Poker Tour stop in Prague, Czech Republic. He notched up two more cashes: a victory in a €10,200 High Roller, and a fourth-place finish in the €50,000 Super High Roller — the largest buy-in tournament at the festival.
Prior to this year, Brewer told PokerNews he was aware of EPT Prague as former friend Stephen Graner won the 2014 EPT Prague Main Event.
"It's definitely something I knew about," he said. "But before the last two years, I just didn't play tournaments. So events like this just weren't something I thought about a tonne."
New Players, New Challenges?
"You may have an idea of what someone's like the way you play online, and you meet them and they're nothing like that"
Since the start of last year, 26 of Brewer's last 32 live tournament cashes have come in Las Vegas, with the other six split evenly between Florida and Cyprus. So it's perhaps easy to see his motivation for heading to EPT Prague.
"I just wanted to travel," he said. "It's fun to get out of the United States and also play with some different people.
"The Vegas crew is kind of small."
Free to Play Slots
Brewer says that the challenges of facing new players at the live felt is a lot of fun.
"Most of us have played online against each other, so to some extent you kind of know who you are playing against. But it's still fun. It's fun to meet people.
"You may have an idea of what someone's like the way you play online, and you meet them and they're nothing like that. So it's always interesting to actually meet them in real life."