Esther Taylor-Brady is hoping her deep runs in ,000 Championship events pays off in the ,000 Poker Players Championship

It’s safe to say that most of the big storylines of each summer come from the higher buy-in $10,000 Championship events. The most notable names in poker use those tournaments to make their claim that they belong as part of the game’s elite. Players like Robert Mizrachi, Jason Mercier, George Danzer and John Hennigan have all added to their lengthy resumes through the first half of the World Series of Poker and another player heads into the latter part of the series with confidence and momentum thanks to some early deep Championship runs.

Esther Taylor-Brady’s summer got off to a late but fast start. She opened the series with a cash in the $1,500 HORSE event and then followed that up with her first big buy-in cash in the $10,000 Omaha Hi-Lo Championship. Unfortunately for the Pennsylvania-based mixed game cash player, that run ended in 11th place, two spots shy of the final table. A few days later, she was bubbling another final table, this time bowing out in 10th place in the $2,500 Mixed Omaha/Seven Card Stud Hi-Loevent.

Fast forward a week and ‘E-Tay’ had another opportunity at a deep run, this time in the $10,000 Stud Hi-Lo Championship and while it was a new event and those past beats were behind her, they were fresh in her mind late on Day 2.

“I put a lot of pressure on myself once we got down to two tables. I just kept thinking, ‘Am I really going to bubble another final table?’, especially since I had yet to make a WSOP final table,” she said.

In the end, she did. Navigating herself to a fourth place finish, good for a career best $107,000 score despite being against one of the more stacked lineups that at the WSOP.

“I was a little overwhelmed,” she admitted. “If you look at the final table, the amount of bracelets and results of the players around me was slightly intimidating. I just had to go in with confidence and try to make as few mistakes as possible, while fighting as hard as possible.”

While the lineup on the felt was a who’s who of the high stakes world, including former bracelet winners Scott Clements, Eli Elezra, Todd Brunson and the eventual champion of that event, the previously mentioned Danzer, Taylor-Brady will be competing against that group throughout the rest of the summer. Her early runs left her with a decision moving forward, whether she wanted to compete in, arguably, the most prestigious event at the WSOP, the $50,000 Poker Players Championship.

“Being fortunate enough to have some deep runs right away gives me a lot of momentum moving forward. After the final table, I took a few days to really think over if that [the $50,000 PPC] was the best thing for me to do,” Taylor-Brady said. “Ultimately, I decided to sell some pieces at face to friends and got a lot of support behind me to just go in and play my game.”

That support comes from E-Tay’s “corner”, which is led by the talisman of #TeamBrady and her husband, Matt Brady. While both Esther and Matt are professional poker players, they are parents first and foremost, to their six-year old daughter Kayla.

“We have always tried to remain balanced but once you have a child, your whole perspective on life changes,” said Taylor-Brady. “What seems like a “bad beat” in poker is nothing on the scale of what matters in the real world.”

That type of thinking is likely one of the biggest reasons for Taylor-Brady’s early WSOP success, as she said came into the summer with a positive approach to block out everything that “doesn’t matter”. Before she even arrived in Las Vegas she made a bet on Twitter.

“There are a few reasons I did that. First, I wanted to motivate myself to leave out the negativity and stay positive. In past years, my lack of success or not reaching final tables always resulted in me whining and complaining about bad beats or ‘bad luck’. I wanted to focus on the skill of the game and making little to no mistakes.”

So far, she’s done just that, with four WSOP cashes and a career-best score already in the books. The Brady balancing act will continue win, lose or draw though and while ‘E-Tay’ has run hot through the first half of the summer, she know’s that’s not what is important.

“I can’t say that I’ve ever claimed to run super hot at cards but I have run amazing at life, family and friends.” And in the end, that’s what matters to Esther Taylor-Brady.