Brian Rast Wins $500,000 Buy-In Super High Roller Bowl

Brian Rast has emerged victorious in the inaugural $500,000 buy-in Super High Roller Bowl, taking home the flashy championship ring and a gigantic $7,525,000 payday for the win. Rast already had three seven-figure tournament scores to his name, but this victory is on a level of it’s own. Rast was not on his own though, as a group of his friends and family surrounded him as soon as the last card came down.

“I’m so humbled by the turnout of my friends, there was really a lot of people that came out for this,” said Rast. “I’m glad I was able to put on a show.”

Rast overcame a field of 43 players that turned out to build a total prize pool of $21,500,000. Among those who put up the half-million dollars were some of the biggest names in the game, but in the end Rast stood alone. As a result of this huge win Rast increased his lifetime live tournament earnings to more than $15.5 million, moving him into 11th place on the all-time earnings list.

Rast entered the final table of seven with roughly a third of the chips in play and more than double his nearest competitor, Scott Seiver. Eight-time World Series of Poker gold bracelet winner Erik Seidel was the first to hit the rail, followed closely by 2010 Card Player Player of the Year Tom Marchese in sixth place. David Peters began the day with the third largest stack but had dwindled and eventually hit the rail in fifth place. Timofey Kuznetsov, a high stakes pro known online as “Trueteller” was the next to go, running top pair into Seiver’s flopped set of nines. He hit the rail in fourth, setting up a three-handed battle between Rast, Seiver and Connor Drinan that saw some of the most dramatic hands of the event.

Rast had held the chip lead for much of the day, but his lead evaporated in one hand, in which Seiver four-bet all-in with 88 and got called by Rast’s KK. Seiver was in bad shape, but found a third eight on the flop and held from there, doubling through Rast to take a commanding lead with roughly two-thirds of the chips in play.

Rast was left with just a slightly larger stack than Drinan, who would be the next opponent he tangled with. The two got their stacks in just moments later, but this time Rast held the pocket eights up against Drinan’s pocket queens. Just like in the previous hand the eights came from behind, with Rast making a full house on a 4338K board. With that he eliminated Drinan in third place and regained some of the chips he had lost just moments earlier.

Heads-up play began with Seiver holding a 2-to-1 chip advantage but Rast quickly doubled up to retake the lead. By the time the final hand arose Rast was up 3-to-1 on Seiver. With blinds at 80,000 – 160,000 with an ante of 20,000 Seiver raised to 380,000. Rast made it 1,040,000 to go before Seiver moved all-in for 5,300,000 total.

After some deliberation Rast made the call with the A9 and found that he was racing against Seiver’s 55. The board ran out Q92K6 to pair Rast’s nine, earning him the pot and sending Seiver to the rail as the runner up with $5,160,000 for his impressive run. Seiver climbed to six on the all-time earnings list as a result, increasing his career live tournament earnings to $20,805,230.

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at this final table:

The massive event was filmed for television, and is set to air on NBC Sports Network. The tournament is being sponsored by Poker Central, the new 24/7 poker television network that produced a $250,000 buy-in cash game TV show earlier this week.

You can check out the listing for this event’s seven episodes, as well as six episodes of a Super High Roller Celebrity Shootout event, right here.

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