You’ve seen it in the movies: a group of soldiers sitting around dealing out a deck of cards, tossing some money in the middle and playing a little poker just to pass the time. It may be cliche, but for Germany’s Torsten ‘Jektiss’ Brinkmann that is a scene from his life.

Torsten, then just 21 years old, was serving in the army when half-a-world away Chris Moneymaker was taking down the World Series of Poker Main Event. The poker boom that turned the game of poker into a global phenomenon reached as far as Torsten and his friends. The next thing he knew he and his crew started playing poker.

“We were just playing for fun and nobody really had a clue what to do,” Brinkmann said.

But soon after his time in the army, as Brinkmann began studying economics at school he happened upon PokerStrategy, one of Europe’s largest online poker communities and strategy forums. It was then that he really started diving deep into the game and taking it seriously.

“I got some free money to play with and ever since then I’ve been into poker.”

That was nearly 15 years ago and a lot has happened to Brinkmann on his poker journey since. He’s been an online grinder and spent some time taking shots playing live. In 2011 he was featured as the runner-up in the European Poker Tour’s Grand Final in Madrid, where he earned a career-high cash of over $1.33 million. Since 2014 though, Brinkmann has turned his attention to grinding online.

“I’ve played a lot of live poker and always tried to find a good balance between live and online. I liked playing live a lot but the biggest downside of playing live poker, except tournaments, is that the game starts very late and you have to spend long nights grinding,” Brinkmann said. “When you play online you can make your own schedules and jump into the games whenever you have the time and you can do that from anywhere you want. The independence of online poker I like the most.”

His love of playing online has recently led him to new opportunities as well. Brinkmann has found a love of streaming his online cash game sessions on Twitch, sharing his ups and downs with an audience. His dedication to streaming has led to him being named as one of GGPoker’s core members of their GG StreamTeam, helping to represent the online poker site.

“What I enjoy the most about streaming is the community with other poker players. I love to share what I am doing and I also love to be part of that community from other streamers when I do not stream myself,” he said.

Brinkmann’s popularity has been building. He now has over 4,200 Twitch followers and his new ambassadorship with GGPoker is helping him expand his audience and share his enthusiasm for online poker while exposing players to the up-and-coming online poker site.

“I was playing on GGPoker for a while before I joined the StreamTeam. Especially as a cash gamer you are always looking around for places with a variety of games running, consistent player pools, simple and stable software, and some rakeback. GG is doing a really good job on all these criteria and this is what the viewers are noticing too. People are showing more and more interest for the site which is great feedback and makes it even more fun streaming.”

For Brinkmann, even after all this time, he’s still finding ways to have fun playing poker. He’s grinding online, interacting with fans and being sponsored by a site he respects – what could go wrong?

“I think the biggest challenge when you stream poker is to keep spreading positivity when you run bad,” Brinkmann said. “I am really bad at this and maybe I need coaching for this, but most of my viewers know that and don’t take it too seriously if I keep crying and complaining. I try to be a little bit more sarcastic if I am running back to keep it at least a bit enjoyable.”

Brinkmann’s stream continues to grow but he’s not overly concerned with what’s down the line.

“I do not have any future plans in mind really. I am happy for any day that I can keep doing what I’m doing at the moment.”

Catch Brinkmann streaming online on his Twitch channel.