Our regular series The Interview is where we bring you up close and personal with the biggest names in poker, and we’re delighted to announce our next guest will be Brian Rast.
Rast is a multiple WSOP bracelet winner and a member of the Poker Hall of Fame. Our full in-depth interview drops this weekend, and to whet your appetite we asked Rast to cast his mind back 12 years to what was then the most expensive poker tournament ever held: 2012’s Big One for One Drop, with its buy-in of $1 million.
With six players remaining there was a huge gap of almost $17M between 6th and 1st place prize money. Then the following hand came up.
Watch the video to see the astonishing hand play out, then check out Rast’s own recollections below.
‘The whole thing was electric’
Over to Brian, and back to 2012…
There's never going to be anything like that tournament.
Prior to this tournament, it wasn't very long since the second biggest tournament of the year was the $25K WPT, where for a couple years you got, like, $3 million for first. Then the WPT started their Alpha Series where they'd have a couple of $100Ks at some stops, but those tournaments were very tough, they’d get 20 people, very small fields. So there were $100Ks but only a couple of them a year.
Rast, pictured in 2012.Then all of a sudden Guy [Laliberté] is like, ‘Hey, I'm doing this event for One Drop and it's going to be a million dollar buy-in’. That was so out of left field at the time, and then not only that, he smashed expectations with the tournament getting 48 players or something. Half the field were, like, ranging from serious amateurs to not-so-serious amateurs, so it was one of the best fields for the pros who had managed to scramble up a million dollars.
A million dollars is a ton of money, and it was even more money for me back then, but luckily I had a lot of people who believed in me and I was able to sell a lot of pieces, and so I managed to get my way in thanks to people who believed.
Antonio Esfandiari, pictured in 2012, would go on to win the tournament and over $18.3 million.Right off the bat it was just this amazing event that, even before the final table, everyone was like ‘Oh my God, look at this field, half of them are amateurs, how did it get 48 players?’ It was amazing and then the tournament's going on and you're in, like, the craziest, biggest tournament that's ever happened.
This is a $1M buy-in with 48 players, it was insane at the time, the whole thing was electric and just the farther it lasted it was kind of like the feeling of being really deep in the WSOP Main Event, but right from day one.
It was crazy, the whole poker world's watching, it was televised and it was cool to be a part of. Busting that… there's not very many moments in my career where I can still remember exactly what happened, but I just remember the feeling.
Sam Trickett, pictured in 2014, would eventually finish runner-up for over $10 million.The board paired, Sam Trickett took his time, went all in, and I snap-called him. There's this weird moment where I turn over my hand expecting to win, and realize after a couple seconds that I don't win.
I can still remember that feeling, like, ‘Oh man, I guess I'm not going to be having fun with these chips at this table with everyone anymore.’ You're just looking for something to do, so I start moving the stacks of chips unnecessarily into the middle, like no one else is going to do that for me, you know? Shaking people's hands. There are very few of those moments, but that one's just etched in my brain. Like, ‘Oh man, quads. Okay Sam, nice hand brother.’
Look out for our full-length interview with Brian Rast, coming this weekend. in the meantime, you can check out other episodes of The Interview below.
