In a poker world often defined by those who have been around since the poker boom, one of the game’s biggest recent winners is a player who cut his teeth during the COVID pandemic. Brandon Wilson’s recent rise to prominence has seen him become one of the world’s most in-form high roller and MTT crushers.

We caught up with the PokerStake player to find out what makes the Chicago-born professional tick, from his early upbringing to high roller results and that WSOP runner-up finish in July.

A Strong Wind Blows

“You just become as good as you can at the game.”

Hailing from Chicago, where The Windy City often features a cool gust known as a ‘Hawk’ wind, Brandon Wilson’s poker history is a recent one. Now a high roller comfortable playing $25,000 and $50,000 buy-in events, Brandon was always someone with a strong work ethic.

“Growing up, I worked really hard at school,” says Brandon. “I ended up graduating from Northwestern University and got into poker in earnest during COVID lockdowns.”

Cutting his teeth online, Brandon had a natural growth mindset and threw himself into hard work in a new field.

“I started to get interested in asking questions, studying the game and finding a coach.”

Brandon has already enjoyed some fantastic wins in his poker career, including his two biggest in $25,000-entry events at the Seminole Hard rock Hotel & Casino in Florida. In April of 2024, he won $601,800 at the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown in Hollywood before taking home $602,900 in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Poker Open in December f the same year.

“Obviously, I’ve been on a dream run at the Hard Rock,” says Brandon. “I love their tournaments. High rollers are certainly tougher fields than a lot of smaller stakes tournaments, but I wouldn’t say you become proficient at a buy-in level necessarily, you just become as good as you can at the game.”

When Brandon first started playing high rollers, he was new and wasn’t familiar playing with the biggest names in the game. That’s all changed now, though.

“I didn’t play with a lot of the guys. I didn’t have a lot of experience. I wasn’t playing with player-specific reads, I just became proficient at those stakes by getting as good as I could get at the game and continuing to do so.”

Selling Action on PokerStake

Brandon has recently sold action on PokerStake, so we asked him about weighing up which events he sells to, and how he decides to price up the action for poker fans.

“I usually decide which events to sell on PokerStake based on the ones that fans are sweating the most, things like WSOP, PGT or the Triton Poker Series. Events that the fans like to watch and engage in and have a good time sweating. They get their money’s worth for entertainment value and cheering for the player they believe in by buying their action and I usually price it based on the market.”

Several times, Brandon has starred in PokerGO Tour (PGT) high roller games in Las Vegas at ARIA. The PokerGO Studio is a venue everyone in elite poker loves so does Brandon feel the same?

“I love the PokerGO studio,” he says. “It’s world class from top to bottom – staff, experience, tournaments. I remember my first time. I was an absolute nobody getting in the mix with some of the most known players at the time. Slightly intimidating, but I just tried my hardest and over time became a familiar face.”

A Rapid Rise

“You have to care enough about the game to consistently do the unsexy work.”

Belying his relative inexperience in terms of ranking tournament poker events, Brandon has raced to an amazing $6 million in live tournament earnings, putting him above bona fide U.S. poker legends such as Kevin MacPhee, Taylor Paur and Brian Hastings, despite not cashing in live events until 2021.

“I think it comes down to the players around me and simply caring a lot,” Brandon declares. “I found a world class coach early in my career and developed relationships with some of the best in the world. When you follow their footsteps and have their support, I think a clear path appears.”

While he was given help up the mountain that tournament poker is to climb, once he had a foothold, Brandon had to haul himself up.

“You have to care enough about the game to consistently do what can reasonably be seen as tedious and unsexy work,” he says. “One of my biggest strokes of luck was finding that I actually enjoy the work and discovery. In other words, many greats took this horse to water, but I had to drink!”

Here’s one of Brandon’s best-ever plays, a spectacular hero call on the river against the great Jeremy Ausmus.

Hunting The Win

“It’s hard to get heads-up for a bracelet.”

Look on The Hendon Mob and you’ll find that most players begun with a small cash in their local live casino event which cost them $50 or $100 to enter. Brandon’s first ranking tournament result was the $12,310 he won in the $5,300-entry WPT Deepstack Championship Poker Series event in Las Vegas, where he came 80^th out of 1,199 entries, Chad Eveslage winning event for $910k.

“I’d put a lot of practice online and a lot of study,” Brandon says on his early career. “I felt ready to compete.”

Now with 10 ranking titles to his name, he has played a dozen heads-up matches, with an enviable 83% success record in them. He puts this down to luck more than skill in another display of modesty.

“It’s declining chops,” he smiles. “But seriously, I have to hold and suck out like everyone else. Chips are bound to swing around, so [I’m] staying focused and taking it a hand at a time.”

One of his biggest ever results came this summer, right at the end of the 56^th annual World Series of Poker. Brandon couldn’t quite take down his first bracelet event, coming second to Andrew Ostapchenko in the WSOP Event #99 for a massive score of $404,532.

“It’s hard to get heads-up for a bracelet,” Brandon says. “I do co-sign my play in that match. I’m not pining to have any hands back – which is not always the case – but things didn’t go my way, and he was a deserving champion. I got $405k for my pain!”

Brandon knows that with hard work and a fair wind, the chances of success will be with him again in the near future. You can follow his action and invest in that success via his official PokerStake staking page.

“I’m a serial last-minute trip booker, but wherever I go, you can count on my action being up exclusively on PokerStake!”

Photographs courtesy of the PokerGO Tour and Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open