Brian Rast Leads $500,000 Super High Roller Bowl Final Table
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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 
and was up against the 
of Scott Seiver. The board ran out 
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: 
Robl: 
It was a classic race, but Robl was the one that needed to improve. The 
flop actually have Rast a set, but all hope was not lost for Robl, who picked up a gutshot Broadway draw. The turn was no help to Robl, and neither was the 
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
| Seat | Player | Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brian Rast | 7,980,000 | 133 |
| 2 | Scott Seiver | 3,950,000 | 66 |
| 3 | Erik Seidel | 1,930,000 | 32 |
| 4 | Connor Drinan | 1,295,000 | 22 |
| 5 | Timofey Kuznetsov | 1,725,000 | 29 |
| 6 | David Peters | 3,015,000 | 50 |
| 7 | Tom Marchese | 1,705,000 | 28 |
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.
flop gave Marchese a flush draw and allowed him to freeroll the hand against Altergott, who was at risk for his tournament life.
hit fourth street. Despite Marchese hitting the flush not he turn, Altergott wasn't drawing dead just yet, as he could chop if the nine of spades or four of spades put a straight flush on the board. It didn't when the 
, and Rast's kings stayed in front. The 
flop. After Negreanu checked, Marchese bet 75,000. Negreanu check-raised all in for what looked to be 500,000-600,000, and Marchese made the call.
for a flush draw.
, and that was the end of the road for Negreanu.
blanked. Colman exited in 19th place.