Brian Rast (tsarRast)

Brain Rast was born in the USA in 1981. He now lives in Las Vegas and focuses all his time on his professional poker career. Although he began his career as an online cash game player on Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars, today he is primarily a live tournament player. Brian has won 6 WSOP bracelets, appeared at 16 WSOP final tables and made the money in 64 WSOP tournaments! To date, he has amassed over $25 million in tournament earnings, with his best performance coming in 2015 when he won the $500,000 No Limit Hold'em - Super High Roller Bowl for a cash payout of $7.5 million. And all this doesn't count his winnings online or in private cash games.

Early career on PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker

Brian made a name for himself online under the pseudonym "tsarRast" when he began his career. At first, he played mainly cash games and the occasional tournament. Despite his low tournament volume, he still achieved impressive results. In 2007, he won a tournament on Full Tilt (the FTOPS III Main Event) for $114,203. In 2008, he finished 3rd in the famous Sunday Million on PokerStars for $73,480. A little later, he became a poker coach for the site Poker VT and a little later, for RunItOnce, the site launched by Phil Galfond.

His travels to Macau

Between 2010 and 2014, Rast (like several other pros) made numerous trips to play in Macau, renowned for its high-stakes cash games. The data from these games is almost never made public, but it's fairly reasonable to assume that his results must have been very good for him to return there repeatedly. These games included pros like Ivey, Dwan and several wealthy businessmen. Brian Rast was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in Las Vegas in 2023.