The Season XV WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star $7,500 Main Event drew a record field of 806 players, beating the old record of 753 entries set in the previous season. The final table was played on Saturday and included some famililar poker pros, including Chino Rheem who had the chance to win a forth World Poker Tour title!
The 2013 WPT World Championship main event ($25,000) concluded early Saturday morning with David "Chino" Rheem, who entered the final table with a big lead, defeating Erik Lindgren heads-up for an incredible first prize of $1,150,297. It was Rheem's second World Poker Tour title (His first victory came at the Five Diamond World Poker Classic in Season VII) and now he has over $7 million in live tournament winnings.
Chino Rheem entered Day 4 21st in chips with 24 players remaining and he went on an incredible winning spree after the field reached the money to take the chip lead. Rheem, winner of the WPT Doyle Brunson Classic in 2008, has almost twice as much chips as any other finalist. He he will be joined by two-time WPT title winners Erick Lindgren and Daniel Negreanu on the final table. Negreanu only has 545k to work with, but Erick Lindgren has 2.5 million and is second in chips. In total, 5 of 8 finalists already have their names engraved on the WPT Championship Cup trophy: Daniel Negreanu, Erick Lindgren, Rocco Palumbo, Chino Rheem and Jonathan Roy.
Yesterday the second day of WPT Merit Cyprus Classic was played. There were 132 players left when the day started and Chino Rheem had the lead, and Sam El Sayed was in 3rd place and Robert Mizrachi in 6th place ("The Grinder"'s brother).
Believe it or not but all of them did very, very well during Day 2 and are the in the top of the field with only 53 remaining players. Sam El Sayed, winner of of 2010 WPT Amneville, is the chip leader with 375,500 chips, closely followed by Erik Cajelais (371,500), Robert Mizrachi (365,000) and Chino Rheem (361,000). Many of the 53 players are relatively unknown players, so it's very nice to see some familiar faces in the top of the field.
The money bubble will burst when 36 players remain (28 - 36 place pay $8,070). The winner of the tournament will take home $287,784k and the runner-up gets $184,020.
The two starting days (Day 1a and 1b) of World Poker Tour Merit Cyprus Classic were played over the weekend. The main event attracted 329 players thus creating a total prize pool of $1,212,694. Now there are 132 players left and they will return to the tables in a few hours to play Day 2. The chip leader is no one else than David Rheem with 291,500. Doesn't ring a bell? David "Chino" Rheem is a well-known figure on the poker circuit having finished 7th in the 2008 WSOP Main Event for 1,7 million and won WPT's Season VII Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic, earning $1,5 million.
The Season XV WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star $7,500 Main Event drew a record field of 806 players, beating the old record of 753 entries set in the previous season. The final table was played on Saturday and included some famililar poker pros, including Chino Rheem who had the chance to win a forth World Poker Tour title! 
