American pro Brian Rast notched his sixth WSOP bracelet after winning the $50,000 buy-in Poker Players Championship for a third time. Rast edged out Talal Shakerchi to win 2023 WSOP Event #43 $50,000 Poker Players Championship and $1,324,747 in cash. Earlier in the week, Chris Brewer took down Event #40 $250,000 NL High Roller for $5,293,556 after he outlasted a field of 69 entries.

The 2023 WSOP continued in Las Vegas and two big events crowned champions including the $250,000 NL High Roller and the $50,000 Poker Players Championship. The series heads into the final weekend of June, and this is the time of year when everyone who has been grinding from the start of the WSOP hits the proverbial wall.
It didn't take more than a week before someone else reached the Six Timer Club. It's been a wild summer in Las Vegas at the 2023 WSOP. Shaun Deeb joined an exclusive club when he binked his sixth WSOP bracelet last week, but you can now add Brian Rast to that list after he secured bracelet #6 with three of them coming in the $50,000 Poker Players Championship.
2023 WSOP Event #40 $250,000 NL High Roller attracted 69 entries and a prize pool worth $17,181,000. The top 11 places paid out and the top five earned a seven-figure pay out with nearly $5.3 million set aside to the champion.
Among those who went deep and cashed in the $250K High Roller included David Peters, Brandon Steven, Steven Veneziano, Alfred Decarolis, and Ben Heath. The final six included Chris Brewer, Artur Martirosian, Alex Kulev, Chance Kornuth, Dan Smith, and the controversial Martin Kabrhel. Chris Brewer defeated Russian pro Artur Martirosian heads up to win $5,293,556.
Social media blew up with numerous posts from poker pros calling out Kabrhel's low-brow tactics of marking cards and not even trying to be discreet by standing up and hovering over the backs of opponents' cards to see if they were marked. Martin Kabrhel busted in third place but banked $2,279,038.
Event #41 $1,500 Big O attracted 1,458 runners and a prize pool just short of $1.95 million. The top 219 places paid out. Scott Abrams denied Robert Williamson III a second-career bracelet when he was the last player standing in Big O, which paid out $315,203.
Event #42 $800 NL Deepstack (8-Handed) attracted a huge field of 3,773 runners. They generated a prize pool worth $2.65 million, and the top 566 places paid out. Qiang Xu won his first bracelet and $339,377 in cash for shipping the $800 Deepstack.
Event #43 $50,000 Poker Players Championship attracted 99 entries and a prize pool worth $4,727,250. Only the top 15 places earned a cut of the juicy prize pool. The $50K PPC is considered one of the most prestigious events at the WSOP every summer, so it gets a lot of attention and rightfully so.
The final table of seven included Brian Rast, Talal Shakerchi, Matthew Ashton, James Obst, Kristopher Tong, Phil Ivey, and Ray Dehkharghani.
Ivey went deep but he bowed out in sixth place on Wednesday night and missed a shot at bracelet #11. With five to go, British poker wizards Talal Shakerchi bagged the lead with 10M.
The final five returned on Thursday and they slugged it out to determine the PPC champion. Shakerchi and Rast were the final two standing, but Rast denied Shakerchi a chance at winning his first bracelet.
Rast snagged his first bracelet in 2011 with a victory in $1,500 PLO, and added a second piece of bling with a $1.7 million score in the $50K Poker Players Championship. He won his third bracelet and second $50K PPC in 2016. Rast added a fourth bracelet to his collection in 2018 with a win in $10,000 NL Deuce to Seven Lowball Draw Championship. He joined the Five Timers Club in 2021 with a win in 6-Handed NL. He made history with a sixth bracelet victory and a third $50K PPC title in 2023. Rast becomes the 19th player in WSOP history to win at least six bracelets.
Among those who went deep and cashed in the $50K PPC included Marco Johnson, Danny Alaei, Josh Arieh, Johannes Becker, Phil Hellmuth, Maxx Coleman, and John Monette. Hal Rotholz bubbled the final table in eighth place.
Event #45 $1,500 Mixed Omaha 8 attracted 1,091 runners and a prize pool worth $1,456,485. William Leffingwell held off a final table that included Shaun Deeb, and Leffingwell shipped his first bracelet.