Cherishing the Moment: PA Online Grinder Cherish Andrews Busted Boyfriend Brock Wilson on Road to WSOP Online Bracelet
Sometimes the cards top love when it comes to the game of poker. That was the case for Pennsylvania online poker player Cherish Andrews in the recent World Series of Poker Online at WSOP.com.
Deep in the $1,000 No Limit Hold’em Championship on the Pennsylvania platform, Andrews sat on the couch with her dog while boyfriend Brock Wilson played in another room. There were only three players remaining when a huge hand developed between the two.
“He opened and I kind of yelled, ‘I’m all in’ before clicking and he yelled ‘I call’ before calling,” she says. “I had A♠J♠ versus his Ace-Queen. The flop was Queen-high with two spades and I ended up turning him dead. I had him slightly covered to get heads up.”
Wilson hit the rail in third and Andrews went on to take the title for her first bracelet and $31,986. The finish fulfilled a dream that was a frequent topic of conversation between the two.
“Winning felt pretty good, I won’t lie,” says Andrews, who lives in St. Thomas, Pennsylvania. “My boyfriend and I joke a lot on Sundays when the (bracelet events are running in Pennsylvania) and say, ‘We could literally win a bracelet.’ And I did, I won a bracelet.”
Poker power couple
Busting your boyfriend may not be the ideal situation, but Andrews no doubt is pleased with the results. Along with some nice success now online, she also has more than $1 million in live tournament winnings. Wilson has $5.8 million including several bog finishes this year, making for quite the card-playing tandem with Andrews.
“We are both very competitive in general, but of course root for each other always,” she says. “So there are never any hard feelings.”
The bracelet win came after making some changes to her daily poker schedule.
“I decided to only put in a small-volume day since I was leaving for Vegas in a few days and didn’t want to be overwhelmed with tables,” says Andrews, who now lives in Chambersburg. “(The win) didn’t become fully real until I was heads-up with a pretty big chip lead.”
Just 10 days later she came close to adding an Online Circuit Series championship ring as well, finishing runner-up for another $9,868. This summer, Andrews also made a deep run in the $1,000 Ladies Championship at the WSOP, taking ninth for $12,965. That followed a sixth-place finish for $72,105 in the $ 2,200 Mystery Bounty in the Wynn Summer Classic.
In a tournament career dating back to 2008, Andrews’ biggest score came in a WSOP $1,500 NLHE event in 2012. She finished fourth for $210,083.
Despite her tournament success, the 32-year-old poker pro spends much of her time at the cash game tables. Traveling for some tournaments became a more regular part of her poker routine over the last year however. Adding a bracelet to her tournament record turned out to be a nice bullet point.
Eating gold for breakfast pic.twitter.com/axTbIDxRHn
— Cherish Autumn Andrews (@CherishAndrews) November 1, 2022
Poker in the family
Growing up, Andrews remembers her older brothers gathering in the basement with friends for $25 rebuy tournaments. After watching WSOP and World Poker Tour broadcasts on television with them, the teenager jumped in the action herself at age 13.
“I finally told my dad I wanted to play,” she says. “He gave me $25 and I ended up winning it for over $700 and have been addicted ever since.”
That led to home cash games through high school and then heading to the Turning Stone casino in upstate New York when she turned 18.
Away from the table, spending time with family and her dog Coconut, who she is “obsessed with,” are some of her other interests. Andrews also bakes part time, bringing in some extra cash doing something else she loves.
“It’s nice for a change of pace from poker,” she says of her time in the kitchen.
With online poker now legal in Pennsylvania, Andrews now has another option to hit the tables. But unlike some players, a regimented schedule isn’t part of her routine. A few big events here or there are more her style, and that seems to be working so far.
“I don’t have too much of an online poker routine,” she says. “I play the circuit events and the bracelet events. But I’m not huge into online poker, though I have definitely upped the volume in the last year I would say.”
That looks to have been a nice decision and she now has the hardware to prove it.