Before this summer, his biggest live tournament score was for taking 7th in the 2009 WPT Championship for around $204k. He also took 3rd in the 2007 Five Star World Poker Classic for $101k. His current live tournament winnings exceed $2.7 million with another $400k in online tournament winnings. He has experienced million dollar upswings and downswings while playing the high stakes cash games online. Brian Rast was born in Denver, Colorado on November 8, 1981, raised in Poway, California, and currently resides in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Things you might not know:
- Rast was the valedictorian of Poway High School in 2000.
- Rast began playing poker in 2003 after being inspired by watching the 1998 film Rounders.
- Rast enrolled in Stanford University and began as a math major before dropping out of Stanford University to focus on poker.
- Rast's initial focus was playing live cash games, but transitioned to online cash games where he played on his own stake and steadily moved up through the limits.
- Rast's first live tournament cash wasn't until July 2005.
- Rast is a teaching pro from the online poker training site PokerVT and is a Victory Poker Pro.
- Rast once went through a $2 million downswing in online poker cash games in 2008.
- Rast won back over $1.6 million over it in early 2009.
- Rast made his first WSOP final table in 2008, finishing 9th in the $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha tournament for $84,863 and a lot of experience. His final table featured Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu, John Juanda, David Benyamine, and Phil Galfond.
- Rast for years lived the high life of a successful poker player by drinking, partying and often playing with indifference.
- Rast credits Phil Laak and Antonio Esfandiari for refocusing his life and playing to get the most out of his abilities. They partied a ton together, but on a trip to Brazil in January of 2010, he met his fiancee Juliana.
- Rast plays live high stakes cash games all over the world from Macau to Las Vegas to Atlantic City, wherever the big game is.
- Rast once won HK$10million in a 16 hour session.
- Rast's biggest single hand loss was a $700k pot to Sammy Farha.
- Rast battled back down 5-1 in chips heads-up with Phil Hellmuth before coming back for the win a few minutes later.
- Rast enlisted the help of fitness guru David Swanson to help with his fitness and diet, to bring more health and focus into his life and poker playing.
- Rast opted to head out of the country during the early WSOP action this summer so he could fly to Brazil and spend time with his fiancée, Juliana, who he met on a trip to Brazil and who he's trying to obtain a visa to come to the U.S.
- Rast had just returned from Brazil and wasn't planning to play the $1,500 PLO event, but friend Antonio Esfandiari convinced him to play.
- Rast did not play in the WSOP Main Event.
- Rast admits his biggest weakness is his temper and biggest strength are his analytical skills at the table.
Rast on his Players Championship win:
“It was amazing. There wasn’t really a back and forth. He just won every pot for an hour. It was pretty frustrating,” said Rast. “It was something to fade those (flush draws) and I definitely got lucky to win. Luck is a very strange thing.”
Rast on how meeting his fiancee in Brazil changed his life:"I kept going back and maintaining it. I started eating healthy. We'd get together on Skype every day. It brought balance to my life. I had something serious in my life. She has an eight-year-old son. If I played poker, there were stronger ramifications to losing. Now I have a girl, she has a kid and I'm working to support a family."
Rast on his standing in poker:“I feel like I’m pretty well known in the poker community of professionals who respect my game, but now maybe people who haven’t heard will recognize me. I think respect from your peers is pretty important and everyone wants respect from people within their profession and a bracelet kind of gives you that recognition.”
Rast on playing tournaments versus he more regular cash game play"“I haven’t been a hard core tournament player during my career, but, at this point, after seven years, it has now racked up to be a decent number of tournaments. It means a lot to me that I was finally able to take one down. Even though I am up in the World Series in terms of cashes.”
Two video interviews with Brian Rast, with one video segment from one of his training videos:
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