Card Player Poker Stories Podcasts With Brian Rast

Poker Stories is a new, long-form audio series that features casual interviews with some of the game’s best players and personalities. Each episode highlights a well-known member of the poker world and dives deep into their favorite tales both on and off the felt.

Click here to download or subscribe to the Poker Stories podcast on iTunes.

Age: 35
Turned Pro: 2005
Hometown: Poway, California
Live Tournament Earnings: $19.5 million
Best Score: 1st Place 2015 Super High Roller Bowl — $7.525 million

On his love of games…

“I was drawn to a lot of things about [poker]. I loved playing all games. I went down a Counter-Strike hole my first year in college. I was serious about my Counter-Strike. Once I started playing poker, I could still play a game, but at least I could make some money at it. There was something I could get out of it. The first summer I took it seriously, I made like $20,000.”

On live tells…

“Even good players sometimes, like very practiced players, will subconsciously do something quickly. Those types of things, things that happen immediately and fast, are often the best tells. Especially in a long session, everyone has moments when they are just a little distracted. I do things in a distracted state of mind that I wouldn’t do in a focused state of mind.”

On his big Vegas-to-LA bicycle prop bet…

“I had to do it with no drafting and no training. I got laid 6:1 on this one with Dan [Bilzerian]. We called the coach guy and he said that I should get out of the bet. I was only risking $100,000 and buying out [wasn’t an option], so I was in. The bike coach told me, ‘You have no chance of doing this.’ I told him I couldn’t get out of the bet, so then he said, ‘Well, I guess you got to give it the good old college try.’”

On playing a $3 million pot…

“We were deep. We were like $1.5 million effectively deep, about 400 big blinds. I obviously wanted to run it more than one time. You could tell he was thinking about it for a bit before he looked back at me and held up only one finger. The board is out and he doesn’t do anything even though he’s supposed to show his hand. He’s a notorious slow roller, and the last thing I want to do is show my hand and lose the biggest pot I’ve ever played. I don’t want to piss him off, so I just turn over my hand and really hope.”

Click here to download or subscribe to the Poker Stories podcast on iTunes. Catch up on previous episodes and subscribe to have new episodes automatically appear in your podcast app so you can listen on the go.