Chino Rheem Wins 2013 World Poker Tour $25,000 Championship

Chino Rheem has won his second World Poker Tour main event title, topping a field of 146 entrants in the $25,000 buy-in WPT Championship. For the win Rheem was awarded $1,150,297 and 1,008 Card Player Player of the Year points. Rheem had already had quite a run at the Five Star World Poker Classic (the Bellagio series that features the WPT Championship.) Prior to the main event he made three prelim final tables, finishing fourth once and runner-up twice. As a result of this success he has made his way to 25th in the overall POY rankings.

With the seven-figure payday, Rheem’s live tournament earnings now exceed $6.8 million. Despite those impressive results, Rheem has not always been able to hold on to his winnings, as he himself discussed in his post-win interview with WPT Tournament Director Matt Savage.

“So [this win] was very special to me,” said Rheem. “Because I’ve been giving a lot of chances in my life, and before when I had score I would tell myself that I wouldn’t put myself in the same position, and I still found myself in the same position. Hopefully I can have a better outlook on life and what I’m going to do with it… I’m definitely going to try to not be so impulsive, and just make better life decisions.”

Rheem defeated Erick Lindgren heads-up for the title. Lindgren, who himself has had very public struggles in recent years, earned $650,275 for his runner-up finish. Rheem also gave his thoughts on the two of them getting heads-up.

“I want the public to realize: Don’t judge unless you really understand or you know. Erick’s a great guy. Yeah he’s had his ups and downs, but who hasn’t? Who hasn’t made mistakes?” said Rheem. “He’s just trying to make better with his life doing what he’s very good at doing.”

Here is the entire interview from the World Poker Tour:

Rheem and Lindgren had to outlast a tough final table that featured the likes of Matt Hyman, Brandon Steven, David Peters and 2012 WPT Montreal champ Jonathan Roy. Roy earned $421,800 and 672 POY points for his third-place finish. Roy had previously made the final table of the 2013 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, and as a result of these two huge scores, he has climbed to 15th place in the overall POY standings with 1,812 points and $981,800 in year-to-date earnings.

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at this televised final table:

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