Brian Rast Wins $500,000 buy-in Super High Roller Bowl

Monday July 6,2015 :  GREAT POKER PAY DAY FOR BRIAN RAST AT THE ARIA
 
US poker pro claims inaugural Super High Roller Bowl for $7.52 million.
 
The attention swerved again this weekend from the World Series of Poker at the Rio to the Aria, where US poker pro Brian Rast took down the spectacular first $500,000 buy-in Super High Roller Bowl.
 
With 43 players registered, the event carried a massive $21.5 million prize pool, ensuring that most of the final table earned over a million dollars each, and Rast's first prize was a monumental $7.52 million.
 
Rast played a brilliant tournament to enter the final table as chip leader with over a third of the chips available. That was over 200 percent more than his nearest rival, the experienced US pro Scott Seiver.
 
Erick Seidel, who has the distinction of holding eight WSOP bracelets, had a bad day and was the first to be eliminated from the final table, and the only player at the table to be paid under a million dollars at $860,000.
 
Rast dominated much of the play during most of the final table action, but suffered a setback at the three-handed stage as he tangled with Connor Drinan and Seiver and lost much of his stack to the in a double up that put Seiver in charge.
 
Rast recovered ground by eliminating Drinan, and then entered the heads up against Seiver at a 2 to 1 chip disadvantage. Rast then staged a major comeback by doubling up to reclaim the chip lead, and he built steadily on this base to finally vanquish Seiver and send him home with a still impressive $5.16 million second prize.
 
The other final table earnings on this internet-streamed and avidly watched event looked like this:
 
3  Connor Drinan  $3,225,000 
4  Timofey "Trueteller" Kuznetsov  $2,150,000 
5  David Peters  $1,505,000 
6  Thomas Marchese  $1,075,000 
7  Erik Seidel  $860,000
 
If you missed the livestreamed coverage, you can watch the epic action in this tournament on NBC Sports at a time to be advised by sponsor Poker Central.