- Written by Jonathan Zaun
A third place finish for $755,370 in the recent WPT Alpha8 Las Vegas high-roller event marks yet another fourth or better result for Brian Rast in the months since he co-founded Zen Poker Mentoring, showing that he clearly knows how to hold down his title of Lead Pro. Rast began his torrid run with a pair of high-roller events at the Aria, placing third in the $100K buy-in event for $217,800 before adding a fourth place run in the $50K buy-in tourney for another $129,360. His next cash nearly produced yet another World Series of Poker bracelet, as Rast placed third in the WSOP-Asia Pacific’s $1,650 Eight-Game Mix event. Rast returned to Las Vegas and continued to crush high-rollers at the Aria, placing fourth in a $50K for $61,250 and third in a $25K for a whopping $214,613. As impressive as that run was though, Rast’s masterful run at the Bellagio in the WPT Alpha8 Las Vegas netted more than those five cashes combined.
When it comes to poker’s elite high-roller circuit, Zen Poker Mentoring Lead Pro Brian Rast is on quite the roll.
During the last few months Rast has simply dominated the top tier tournaments that make Las Vegas’ poker landscape so legendary, and on December 20 th he capped off an incredible year with another huge score in Sin City. Competing against the game’s greatest players in the WPT Alpha8 Las Vegas event hosted by the Bellagio, Rast ponied up a cool $100,000 to play with his friends and peers in the Alpha8 series’ largest tournament to date.
With the option to reenter available through the first few levels of Day 2, a few of the fallen pros brought their bankrolls to bear by rebuying for another $100K, and eventually the field topped out at 55 entries. A massive prize pool of $5,395,500 was generated, with the final six players left in contention vying for payouts ranging from $2,104,245 for the winner to $323,730 for sixth place. When it was all said and done Rast only needed to fire one $100K bullet to build up a big stack, and he rode that early momentum to notch a third place finish, good enough a $755,370 payday and his largest cash of the year.
Rast entered the tournament via late registration in midway through Day 1, and he spun his starting stack of 300,000 chips up to 623,000 by the chips were bagged up for the evening. Day 2 saw Rast wield pocket kings to eliminate fellow pro Pratyush Buddiga and his underpair, before crippling poker enthusiast and businessman Ray Faltinsky when two aces in the hole trumped big slick. When the last 16 players left in the field redrew and took their seats, Rast sat in sixth place on the leaderboard with 1,415,000 chips – but he quickly set his mind, separating several tablemates from their stacks during his sprint to the final table.
First, Rast claimed nearly all of Jason Koon’s chips after flopping a set of threes and getting paid off. Rast eventually claimed the rest of Koon’s short stack in a coin flip, and he followed that up be sending Dong Kim to the rail by fading the latter’s nut flush draw. The official final table of eight was set Rast busted Jason Mercier by coming from behind, his A-J flopping a pair to run down A-K. That win propelled Rast to the top of the chip counts with 4,545,000 – and he entered Day 3 as the final table captain, holding more than 1.5 million more than his closest opponent. According to the WPT Alpha8 Live Updates page, here is how the final table lineup stacked up as Day 3 began:
Seat 1: Phil Laak – 440,000 (15 bb)
Seat 2: Bryn Kenney – 2,380,000 (79 bb)
Seat 3: Noah Schwartz – 765,000 (26 bb)
Seat 4: Brandon Steven – 1,185,000 (40 bb)
Seat 5: Jason Les – 2,380,000 (79 bb)
Seat 6: Brian Rast – 4,545,000 (152 bb)
Seat 7: Tom Marchese – 1,855,000 (62 bb)
Seat 8: Andrew Lichtenberger – 2,900,000 (97 bb)
Rast notched the first elimination of the final table by felting a short-stacked Phil Laak in a coin flip, with Rast’s J-9 besting Laak’s pocket sixes. On the direct money bubble of yet another high-roller tournament, Rast was relentless in securing his 14 th cash of 2014, and he combined pocket tens with a board full of babies to bust Brandon Steven and his big cards. From there, Rast hunkered down and picked his spots, watching Bryn Kenney fall in sixth place ($323,730) while Andre Lichtenberger picked up pot after pot to wrest the chip lead away.
A huge hand between the two saw Rast reclaim top honors though, when his A-5 connected on the A-5-3 flop for top two pair, before the river delivered another 5 to give him a boat. When Lichtenberger check-raised the river for most of Rast’s stack, he responded with an all-in shove, doubling to just over 7 million when “LuckyChewy” called. A few orbits later Rast knocked Jason Les out in fifth place ($431,640), pocket eights prevailing over a suited A-6. Noah Schwartz was the next to go – his fourth place run good for a $539,550 payday – and ten hands later Rast was on the ropes after sending a full double to Tom Marchese with an inferior ace. Rast’s short-stacked shove with 6-7 was picked off by Lichtenberger’s J-10, and a pair on the turn for “LuckyChewy” was enough to end Rast’s remarkable high-roller run. The full payout table for the WPT Alpha8 Las Vegas event can be found below:
1st: Andrew Lichtenberger – $2,104,245
2nd: Tom Marchese – $1,240,965
3rd: Brian Rast – $755,370
4th: Noah Schwartz – $539,550
5th: Jason Les – $431,630
6th: Bryn Kenney – $323,730
The third place result marks yet another fourth or better finish for Rast in the months since he co-founded Zen Poker Mentoring, showing that he clearly knows how to hold down his title of Lead Pro. Rast began his torrid run with a pair of high-roller events at the Aria, placing third in the $100K buy-in event for $217,800 before adding a fourth place run in the $50K buy-in tourney for another $129,360. His next cash nearly produced a World Series of Poker bracelet, as Rast placed third in the WSOP-Asia Pacific’s $1,650 Eight-Game Mix event. Rast returned to Las Vegas and continued to crush high-rollers at the Aria, placing fourth in a $50K for $61,250 and third in a $25K for a whopping $214,613.
As impressive as that run was though, Rast’s masterful run at the WPT Alpha8 Las Vegas netted more than those five cashes combined. All told, Rast has added $1.4 million to his bankroll in just four months since launching the Zen Poker Mentoring project. Zen Poker Mentoring will hold the first of its two-day instructional sessions in Las Vegas during the weekend of February 21 st -22 nd , providing poker players of all skill level personal access to Rast and his team of pros and coaches.
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