Brian Rast climbed the ladder to play the highest stakes cash games available relatively fast compared to 99.9% of most players. Over the next eighteen or so years, he would win over $27,000,000 in career tournament cashes, capture three WSOP Player Championships, and six total WSOP bracelets, and garner the respect of his peers as one of the best cash game players worldwide.
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2024 WSOP Main Event success
Rast credits a newfound patient approach to the daily grind of a two-week tournament during a period when some of the juiciest cash games can be exponentially more enticing and profitable.
“I’ve played the WSOP Main Event for the last 18 years. For the first couple of years, I took it very seriously,” confessed Rast. “I was mostly a cash game player for the first half of my career. I didn't really have the patience to come in and pick my spots.
"Patience is one of the dominant themes in how I approached the Main this year and in the last few years. I’ve had my deepest runs: in 2022, I placed 134th, and this year I finished 24th.
"My approach now, especially early on in the tournament, is very different. I’m doing various other things post flop and not doing a lot of stuff preflop. Earlier in my career, there were many times when I would come into the event and, at some point, lose patience. I’d kind of try to make something happen, and it didn't really work out.”
With a little help from his friends
Our extensive interview with Rast, above, comes a few weeks after the Hall of Famer made a deep run in the WSOP Main Event. Rast credits much of his overall success to applying a Bayesian analysis approach while playing live, having a few amazing mentors and close friendships in the poker world, and, most importantly, his wife, Juliana.
Rast does a deep dive into the following topics:
- Transitioning from cash games to MTTs
- The evolution of his mixed-game skills
- Benefits of hypnotherapy
- The crushing Big One for One Drop hand vs. Sam Trickett
- Learning to employ more patience at the WSOP Main Event
- Winning the 2015 Super High Roller Bowl for $7.5M
- Close friendships with Phil Laak and Antonio Esfandiari
- Learning how to exploit the world’s best players in Bobby’s Room
- Reflections on the late, great Doyle Brunson
- Discovering Bitcoin and predictions for the future of cryptocurrency
- Rast’s mindful goals in an already legendary poker career
If you enjoy The Interview, check out our other in-depth conversations, including our most recent episode with the always-entertaining, pull-no-punches Daniel Negreanu. You can check out other recent episodes below.
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