Brian Rast beats Phil Hellmuth to $50k Players' Championship

Brian Rast beats Phil Hellmuth to $50k Players' Championship

Thursday, 7 July 2011

Phil Hellmuth's quest for bracelet number 12 has once again stalled in second place as Brian Rast staged an incredible comeback to take the $50k Players' Championship.

Hellmuth went into two-handed play holding a slight chip lead but put on a masterclass of heads up poker to stretch it to a commanding five to one advantage. With momentum on his side, bracelet number 12 looked a formality for the Poker Brat.


As Matt Perry wrote last week, 2011 has been the year of the high profile runner up and so it proved again as Rast staged an amazing comeback. This year's $1,500 Pot Limit Hold'em winner got his chips in the middle three times in quick succession, in the lead every time but needing to fade a flush draw on each occasion. He managed to do just that, turning a 3.2m to 15.97m chip deficit into a bracelet and $1,720,328 pay day in the space of half an hour.


A stunned Hellmuth pocketed his first ever seven figure score for his runner up finish. It probably won't prove much consolation at the moment though.


The final table positions and payouts were as follows:


1 Brian Rast $1,720,328
2 Phil Hellmuth $1,063,034
3 Minh Ly $665,763
4 Owais Ahmed $482,085
5 Matt Glantz $376,750
6 George Lind $300,441
7 Scott Seiver $243,978
8 Ben Lamb $201,338


Keep up to date with all the news from the poker world by following us on Twitter and Facebook.



Tags: WSOP 2011, Brian Rast, Phil Hellmuth, $50, 000 Players' Championship