2015 Super High Roller Series

$500,000 Super High Roller Bowl
Day: 2
Event Info

2015 Super High Roller Series

Final Results
Winner
Winning Hand
a9
Prize
$7,525,000
Event Info
Buy-in
$500,000
Entries
43
Level Info
Level
23
Blinds
80,000 / 160,000
Ante
20,000

Brian Rast Leads $500,000 Super High Roller Bowl Final Table

Level 17 : 30,000/60,000, 5,000 ante
Brian Rast
Brian Rast

The inaugural $500,000 Super High Roller Bowl started with 43 entrants, who created a prize pool of $21.5 million, but after two full days of play the field is down to the final seven. Each of the remaining players has locked up a minimum $860,000 payday, but each of them have their eyes firmly fixed on the $7.525 million first-place prize.

The man best positioned to make a run at the top prize is Brian Rast, who leads the final table with 7.98 million.

"I have a lot of chips, and I'm in a really good situation right now," Rast said at the end of the night. "My seat's not too bad, but there are a lot of good players. There are no amateurs. Hopefully I'll have some good luck and things will go well. Maybe I can take this big stack and win the tournament."

Rast is looking for the fourth seven-figure score of his career. His first came in 2011 when he won the World Series of Poker $50,000 Poker Players' Championship for $1,720,328, and then a year later he took sixth in the inaugural Big One for ONE DROP for $1,621,333. More recently, he took home $1,083,500 for winning the World Poker Tour Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic High Roller in December 2013.

Things heated up on Day 2 straight out of the gate when Igor Kurganov, the short stack at the start of play, got his stack all in holding the {k-Clubs}{9-Diamonds} and was up against the {k-Hearts}{10-Hearts} of Scott Seiver. The board ran out {4-Hearts}{4-Clubs}{7-Hearts}{a-Clubs}{a-Hearts} and just like that Kurganov was flushed away.

As the day wore on, Kurganov, who went on to be a guest on the latest edition of the PokerNews Podcast, received company on the rail including Bobby Baldwin, Phil Galfond, Andrew Lichtenberger, Sam Trickett, Ben Sulsky, Daniel Colman, Jason Koon, David "Doc" Sands, Daniel Negreanu, and Andrew Robl, who finished as the bubble boy.

Robl's demise came in Level 17 (30,000/60,000/5,000) when action folded to him on the button and he raised to 160,000. Rast pushed back with a big three-bet to 445,000 from the small blind, and Robl announced that he was all in for right around 2.35 million. Rast snap-called.

Rast: {q-Hearts}{q-Clubs}
Robl: {a-Hearts}{k-Diamonds}

It was a classic race, but Robl was the one that needed to improve. The {j-Diamonds}{q-Spades}{3-Hearts} flop actually have Rast a set, but all hope was not lost for Robl, who picked up a gutshot Broadway draw. The {K-Hearts} turn was no help to Robl, and neither was the {9-Hearts} river.

Robl fell in eighth place as the bubble boy, while the final seven players, bagged and tagged for the night.

"It's a little bittersweet because Andrew is a friend of mine," Rast said after the hand. "It's always tough busting a good friend when you know it's painful for them. It comes along with what we do. My heart goes out to my friend Andrew on that one, but we're all playing poker, and that's what happens."

The $500,000 Super High Roller Bowl Final Table

SeatPlayerCountBig Blinds
1Brian Rast7,980,000133
2Scott Seiver3,950,00066
3Erik Seidel1,930,00032
4Connor Drinan1,295,00022
5Timofey Kuznetsov1,725,00029
6David Peters3,015,00050
7Tom Marchese1,705,00028

The third and final day will kick off at 2:00 p.m. local time on Saturday. The fireworks are sure to fly on the fourth of July, so be sure to join the PokerNews Live Reporting Team then as we bring you all the action and eliminations on the way to crowning the first-ever Super High Roller Bowl champion.

Tags: Brian Rast