Event #40: $250,000 Super High Roller, the highest buy-in event of the 2023 World Series of Poker (WSOP), saw a record field of 69 entrants, up from the 56 that registered in last year’s event, create a prize pool of $17,181,000, with the eventual winner pocketing $5,293,556.

On Sunday, the final nine returned to the event center at the Horsehoe and Paris Las Vegas to try and claim the top prize, but it would be high-stakes poker pro, Chris Brewer, who would eventually do it. Brewer put on an artful display of short stack maneuvering throughout the day to earn a new career-high score and his first-ever WSOP bracelet.

Brewer became emotional in his post-win interview, commenting, “I’m sorry, I’ve had some really tough ones. It just feels good.”

Brewer’s had some close calls in the past and was developing a reputation as being “unlucky,” in so much as being voted “most unlucky player” by a WSOP poll, but said, “Oh, I don’t think so, I think I’m getting pretty lucky nowadays.”

Prior to winning, Brewer had just north of $10 million in lifetime earnings, with his biggest win netting him a bit over $1 million at EPT Paris.

Final Table Action

Nine players returned to battle it out, but only seven would make the PokerGo live broadcast, as Steven Veneziano would exit in ninth after calling it off with top pair against the flopped two pair of Chance Kornuth.

Last year’s runner-up in this event, Brandon Steven, would be the next to go when his flush draw failed to improve against the flopped trips of polarizing figure, Martin Kabrhel. Steven would take home $574,899 for his efforts.

The first casualty of the live stream was four-time bracelet winner, David Peters, whose ace-nine dominated the ace-eight of Kornuth, but Kornuth would ultimately make a flush to send Peters to the rail in seventh.

Dan Smith battled back from the short stack at the beginning of the day to become one of the chip leaders, only to be out in sixth place when his kings fell to the turned set of queens of Artur Martirosian, which left Smith with crumbs. Smith would be out a few hands later when his ace-queen failed to hold against the ten-six of Martin Kabrhel.

Kornuth would finish fifth for his first ever seven-figure pay-day, saying, he was glad to get that monkey off his back. Another first for Kornuth was having his Dad watch him at the final table, something he said he’s never done before. Kornuth was able to fly him out in time to see his son win over $1.2 million dollars. On Father’s Day, no less.

Martirosian would be responsible for the next two eliminations, sending Alex Kulev out in fourth after his queen-jack failed to improve against the pocket eights of Martirosian and Kabrhel hit the payout desk in third after shoving queen-deuce suited from the button and running right into Martirosian’s ace-king.

Heads-up play began with Brewer at a more than two-to-one chip disadvantage until his pocket three’s held up against the ace-ten of Martirosian. That created a one-eighty in the counts, giving Brewer the two-to-one chip lead and leaving Martirosian at risk. Things would come to a head when Martirosian called a pre-flop jam from Brewer with ace-king against Brewers ace-seven. Martirosian was in great shape to continue the match until Brewer would catch pure lightning in the form of a runner-runner straight after a king-high flop. Martirosian took home $3,271,666 as a consolation prize.

That does it for PokerNews’ coverage of Event #50: $250,000 Super High Roller, but our live reporting team is still on-site, offering updates from every bracelet-awarding event of the 2023 WSOP.