Rheem on Course for WPT’s Top Prize

Rheem on Course for WPT’s Top Prize

Thursday, 23 May 2013

Yesterday’s WPT World Championship Main Event might have been a brief session that lasted only two hours but in that time two players hit the rail and Chino Rheem extended his mammoth chip lead.

Starting the day with eight players and needed to get to six, it was Daniel Negreanu and Rocco Palumbo swimming against the tide with their short stacks from the start.

Indeed, with Rheem and Erick Lindgren holding imposing stacks it was always going to be tough for the two pros to get back into contention. However, things started brightly for Negreanu who strung together a series of pots that helped boost his stack towards the 30 big blind mark.

In contrast, Palumbo failed to get anything going and after a short stack shove with Js 8h from the small blind he found himself needed a slice of luck against the Kh Jh of Brandon Steven. However, despite an encouraging Ts 9s 5s flop, Palumbo couldn’t hit one of his outs as the 9c and 5c fell on the turn on river.

With seven players remaining the action soon turned against Negreanu who found himself slowly losing ground against the chip leaders. A late double up gave him some hope of getting himself into contention, however, as hour two struck, he found himself all-in and dominated with As Tc.

Having been called by Erik Lindgren holding pocket jacks, Negreanu was looking for some help but after the board ran out Th 8s 5h 8h 7d he found himself heading for the rail to collect his $137,085 consolation prize.

Negreanu’s exit left just six players in line for today’s final and the top prize of $1,150,297. Currently leading the way is Chino Rheem with 5,495,000 chips, just ahead of Erick Lindgren (3,355,000) and Jonathan Roy (1,900,000).



Tags: WPT Championship 2013, Chino Rheem, Daniel Negreanu, Erick Lindgren, Jonathan Roy