Brian Rast Talks WSOP & Future Goals on the 888poker Ride

During the summer, 888poker had an opportunity to pick up many great players in Las Vegas and take them for a short ride, exchanging a courtesy lift for a few minutes of their time as they answered a few questions.

One of these greats who hopped inside Dave Tuchman’s car was Brian Rast, a man who’s been crushing poker for years and got his well-deserved place in the Poker Hall of Fame last year.

Unlike many players who seem to relish being in the spotlight, Rast has always kept more to himself. He’s always been a good sport and happy to give interviews when asked to, but he’s never really sought the media attention.

This is a reason more why this is one of must-watch 888poker Rides and the one we really wanted to highlight!

Brian Rast on the Poker Hall of Fame & What’s Next

Rast was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2023, and although he’s deserving of the accolade, he shared with Tuchman that he was happy it happened when it did.

Moving forward, Rast feels like getting inside the elite circle will become increasingly difficult, as more and more great players are reaching the eligible age of 40, and with only one spot open every year, the competition will be fierce.

Talking about his future plans, Rast explains his goalposts have moved somewhat. A few years back, his main aim was simply to continue on his trajectory of developing as a great poker player, but what that entails today is different from what it used to mean in the past.

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With the advent and progress of different poker tools, he feels like getting better at poker has become similar to chess, involving a lot of intense studying. So, although his competitive drive will never change, spending hours going through solvers isn’t something he enjoys.

Rast no longer plays full-time, but when he does join the action like he did this summer for the World Series of Poker, he strives to bring out his A game.

For him, the most important thing is how he feels about his own game at the end of the day, but the opinion of his peers matters as well because “they know what’s up.”

Who’s the Best Player Around?

While Rast doesn’t play as much as he used to, he’s very much involved with the poker world. One of these engagements is his connection to the Triton Poker Series, which gathers some of the best players in the world to play in super high-stakes tournaments and cash games.

Rast did a lot of commentary for Triton events and he even played in a few of them himself, so he got to really know some of the finest and best players around.

When put on the spot by Tuchman to name the best of the best, Rast wasted little time mentioning Chidwick and Mateos as some of the best No Limit Texas Hold’em tournament players.

He also went on to explain that, although all these players have access to the same resources to learn about the GOT strategy, they’re not just replicating what they had memorized. Instead, they have a very good understanding of the underlying theory.

Of course, an interview such as this could hardly go without mentioning one of the GOATs, Phil Ivey. In Rast’s words, he is one of the greatest talents to have ever played the game, and he is convinced that this natural talent has helped him pick up this new knowledge a lot quicker than most.

The Modern-Day World Series of Poker

Talking about the World Series of Poker, Rast explains that he doesn’t think the summer series in Las Vegas has fundamentally changed at all. There are more tournaments and more bracelets up for grabs, but it remains what it’s always been – a place for all types of players to find action around the clock.

However, with all the different WSOP events happening around the world, outside of Las Vegas, and with numerous online poker bracelet events, he does feel that the idea of the bracelet has been somewhat cheapen.

If it were up to him, bracelets would be limited to the seven-week series in Vegas, and anyone looking to win one on the cheap would have to likely have to outlast a massive field to do so. And, as an aside, this is a sentiment that’s shared by many top pros.

For his part, things left on the Rast to-do list are winning the Main Event (albeit that’s a rather ambitious goal) and winning the WSOP Player of the Year title. The latter one is certainly achievable for a player of Rast’s caliber, so we’ll just have to wait and see what future summers in Las Vegas have to offer.

Article by

Ivan Potocki

Ivan played poker professionally for over five years but finally decided to merge his passion for writing with poker and became one of the leading writers in this industry. You can connect with Ivan via his LinkedIn profile and follow him on Twitter.