Chino Rheem Vies For Record-Breaking 4th WPT Title at Bay101

The final table of the Season XV World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star is set, and none other than David ‘Chino’ Rheem leads the way with 10,650,000 chips. Rheem’s looking to break a five-way tie and become the sole record holder with four WPT titles, and all he needs to do is battle through a stacked final table. 

The final table includes two-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner Paul Volpe, bracelet winner Anthony Spinella, Super High Roller Bowl champion Rainer Kempe, WPT Champions Club member Sam Panzica, and the lesser known Dennis Stevermer who sits at the bottom of the counts with just 12 big blinds. 

The third day of play started with 44 players, all guaranteed to take home $2,850 and Volpe holding the chip lead over Dan O’Brien. Mike Sexton was still in contention aiming to overtake Ben Zamani for the Player of the Year honors, but his run fell short in 22nd place for $30,590. 

Day 1a chip leader Eddy Sabat was knocked out in 42nd place by Rheem, and other known pros such as Jim Collopy (40th), Pratyush Buddiga (35th), Shooting Star Christian Harder (34th) and Charlie Carrel (32nd) were sent home in the early goings of the penultimate day.

Dan O’Brien had a disastrous day that ended that ended with him getting knocked out by Stephan Graner when he shoved ace-ten into the former EPT Prague winner’s pocket jacks. O’Brien was sent home in 29th place. 

Shooting Stars Garret Greer (23rd), David Williams (16th) were the last two bounties not to make the final table, and Kempe now remains as the sole Shooting Star in the tournament. Former November Niner Neil Blumenfield busted in 12th place to Sergio Aido, after which Kevin MacPhee busted in 10th on the final table bubble taking home $53,530.

It took 59 hands to get from 9 to the final 6, as Stephen Graner (9th – $74,290), Igor Yaroshevskyy (8th – $106,520) and Sergio Aido (7th – $144,760) fell short of the televised final table. 

Here are the chip counts of the final six players.

Chino Rheem – 10,650,000
Rainer Kempe – 3,705,000
Sam Panzia – 3,215,000
Paul Volpe – 3,005,000
Anthony Spinella – 2,635,000
Dennis Stevermer – 980,000

The remaining players are battling it out for the following payouts:

1st:  $1,373,000*
2nd:  $786,610
3rd:  $521,660
4th:  $349,610
5th:  $243,090
6th:  $188,460

* The first-prize amount includes the winner’s $15,000 entry into the season-ending WPT Tournament of Champions.

The final table of this event starts at 4:00 p.m. local time, live updates can be followed on WPT.com.