Camille Brown's Unorthodox Career Path Results in WPT Gardens Cash

By Sean Chaffin

The path to a poker life for Camille Brown’s (pictured) didn’t consist of learning to play online in her college dorm room after watching the game on television. Her father didn’t teach her as a child at the dinner table. She didn’t learn playing for pennies or pieces of candy with friends in the neighborhood.

“I was that girl that stood behind her boyfriend for ages watching him play,” she says. “And then he taught me how to play and I ventured off on my own.”

The relationship didn’t work out, but her love for poker remained. 

“We’re still friends,” she adds. “So I can still talk to him about hands.”

Before playing cards became her profession, Brown worked in various office and retail sales jobs. Now a regular cash game player for the last six years, Brown can be found daily at the Commerce Casino and sometimes in the Gardens playing $5/5 or $5/$10 cash games. 

“I don’t play a ton of tournaments,” she says. “I play at the World Series of Poker during the summer, but I go between cash games and tournaments. I played a lot more tournaments this time and wanted to keep that going.”

Brown wound up placing 37th at the WPT Gardens Poker Festival, for her first cash on the World Poker Tour. 

At the World Series of Poker, Brown cashed five times including a 16th-place finish in a $5,000 No Limit Hold’em event for $20,148. She’s hoping to continue improving her tournament skills, but feels outmatched by other players in the field.

“I know a lot of these players eat, sleep, and breathe poker,” she says. “That’s not me but I plan on studying and playing more tournaments. I can’t just do tournaments though. It’s just soul-crushing to play well and accumulate a nice stack and then make a mistake on one or two hands or just getting coolered, and you’re out of the tournament. I don’t know how these people do it.”

Brown admits she doesn’t have many hobbies anymore besides poker. She’s from Riverside, California, and played softball in high school. Her parents weren’t thrilled about her choice to make her living at the poker felt.

“My mom doesn’t love it, especially considering I was in the gifted program growing up,” she says. “In her eyes I kind of squandered my potential because I could have been a doctor or lawyer or something.”

“I was born in Jamaica and parents from other countries really appreciate the American dream – you work hard, go to school, and get a good job. I think she’d have been much happier if I had something a lot more stable. But it is what it is and I don’t ever have to borrow any money from her, so she’s okay with it.”

Despite her lack of tournament experience, Brown believes that might bring some advantages as well. More WPT tournaments may even be in her future.

“I know I’m outmatched by people who put so much work into this,” she said on Day 2. “I’m okay knowing there are players way better than me. But there’s also the benefit that I’m not really part of this scene. A lot of them play with each other a lot and don’t really know how I play. So I can get away with some things I can’t in the cash games with people who are familiar with me. I’ll see how I do here, and go from there.” 

Sean Chaffin is a freelance writer in Crandall, Texas, and his work appears in numerous websites and publications. Follow him on Twitter @PokerTraditions.