If the name Chino Rheem sounds familiar to you, it’s for good reason. He was one of the “November Nine” – the final table of this year’s World Series of Poker. Rheem finished seventh in the main event but wanted to be sure people didn’t see him as a player who just got lucky to make it that far. No question about that anymore, as he takes down first place in the World Poker Tour’s Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic.
This event tends to be a very large one for the WPT as it is seen as one of the most prestigious events of the year. It has a large buy-in of $15,000, is held at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, and of course bears the name of one of poker’s greatest living legends, Doyle Brunson. There were 497 players fighting for the title this year, but last night it came down to six. The final table finished like this:
1st Place: Chino Rheem – $1,538,730
2nd Place: Justin Young – $936,760
3rd Place: Evan McNiff – $540,440
4th Place: Steve Sung – $396,206
5th Place: Amnon Filippi – $288,235
6th Place: Hoyt Corkins – $216,175
Rheem’s opponent at the final table, Justin Young, was able to make it heads-up in part on a huge three-way all-in hand. Young held pocket Aces and was able to get it in versus Amnon Filippi’s pocket 9’s and Steve Sung’s pocket Kings. When it got down to the final two, Young held a sizable lead on Rheem. However, that lead changed hands several times during a five-plus hours heads-up match. Ultimately, the final hand saw Chino holding pocket Kings while Young shoved his stack in with top pair on the flop, Queens. Kings held up and Rheem took down first place and the top prize of over $1.5 million.