PLAYER PROFILE – Brian Rast
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Poker has been a popular game for many years, constantly evolving with time. While the game has undergone many transformations since its inception, one constant is its impressive strategic depth. Despite simple mechanics, every poker game has countless scenarios, making it impossible to master completely. Its endurance and strategic profundity work together to create a wondrous competitive scene.
Since its beginnings with the first World Series of Poker (WSOP) in 1970, competitive poker tournaments have become an integral part of the game. High-stakes tournaments are broadcast worldwide, attracting new players, some of whom may eventually become pros.
Poker professionals are the lifeblood of the game. The best of the best are known throughout the community for their results, personalities, and playstyles. Let’s have an in-depth look at one such pro: Brian Rast.
Player Overview
Brian Rast is an American professional poker player living in Las Vegas, Nevada. He has an impressive history of success, with over $23.5 million in lifetime tournament earnings.
From the WSOP, he has earned five bracelets, two of which were at the Poker Players’ Championship. This is a $50,000 buy-in mixed-game event containing a mashup of nine poker variants, designed to test a players’ skills. The complexity and the extraordinarily high buy-in dissuades beginners from participating, making the event one of the most prestigious in the WSOP. Brian Rast is one of only four people in history to win this event more than once.
Outside of the WSOP, he has placed numerous times in high roller tournaments. His most significant score was a staggering $7,525,000 win at the 2015 Super High Roller Bowl. Rast also frequently plays online poker, preferring cash games over tournaments.
Early Life
Brian Rast was born in Denver, Colorado, on November 8, 1981. He moved to Poway, California, when he was nine, studying at Poway High School. After graduating as class valedictorian, Rast was accepted into Stanford University.
His first experiences with poker were in high school and he became hooked on the game after watching the 1998 cult-classic poker movie Rounders. In the spring of 2003, he joined Stanford’s poker club and started playing weekly.
As his passion for the game grew, he frequently studied up on the game by reading poker books and practicing through online and at live games at the Barona Casino. He initially needed a part-time job to fund his poker habit, but he was soon good enough to quit and focus on poker full time through the summer.
Rast returned to college with over $20,000 in poker earnings. While he had followed his father’s advice to return, his grades took a downturn as his focus shifted to playing poker more often. By the last quarter, he had failed all his classes and was put on academic probation. Although Brian’s school life deteriorated, his poker career was excelling. Rast built up a huge bankroll and felt confident in pursuing poker as a full-time career. Playing No Limit Holdem both online and at the Lucky Chances casino, he eventually left the Bay area in 2005 to make his WSOP debut.
Early Career
Rast first played at the WSOP in 2005 and it was the first tournament he ever cashed in, claiming $3,290 at the $1,000 No Limit Holdem event.
Rast moved back to Poway, where he frequently played online and made trips to Las Vegas to scratch his live-game itch. This back-and-forth continued until he moved to Vegas more permanently in 2007. That same year, Rast claimed his first six-figure score after finishing 3rd in the Fifth Annual Five Star World Poker Classic.
He bought a place at Panorama Towers in 2008, a highrise in Vegas that houses many poker pros. There, he became friends with other notable figures in the poker scene, including Antonio Esfandiari, Phil Laak, Keith Gibson and Andrew Robl. With these new friends, he co-founded Victory Poker, an online poker website that was ultimately shut down after the infamous “Black Friday” online poker incident in 2011.
In 2009, Rast earned two more six-figure scores; one at the Seventh Annual Five Star World Poker Classic and the second at the WSOP in the $40,000 No Limit Hold’em 40th Anniversary event. He made $204,275 and $128,665, respectively.
Golden Years
Phil Laak convinced Brian to join him on a trip to Brazil in 2010. While out on a night drinking, he met Juliana Karla Carlos, and the two quickly hit it off. Though she could not go to the US due to visa issues, Rast frequently traveled to Brazil and kept up with her daily on Skype. By the latter half of the year, they were engaged.
In 2011, he had a string of successes at the WSOP, winning two bracelets. His first was at the $1,500 Pot Limit Holdem event, earning him $227,232. The second was in the Poker Players’ Championship event, earning him an astounding $1,720,328. That year was fantastic for Rast, and not just professionally. For the first time since his WSOP debut in 2005, he missed the Main Event to accompany Juliana during her visa interview. After two previous denials, her application was finally accepted and the two moved in together. They were married in November.
Although Rast was primarily a cash game player for the first few years of his career, Rast began joining more tournaments with great success. He made the final table of the 2012 WSOP $1,000,000 Big One for One Drop (Event #55), finishing 6th for $1,621,333 and in 2013, he won the World Poker Tour $100,000 No Limit Hold’em – High Roller for $1,083,500. He took down the 2015 $500,000 No Limit Hold’em – Super High Roller Bowl for $7,525,000 and won the 2016 Poker Player’s Championship for $1,296,097.
With all these enormous scores, Rast is the only poker player to have earned over $1 million from tournaments alone, for seven consecutive years (2011-2017).
