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LOS ANGELES (Gambling911.com) - LA poker pro Chino Rheem as done it again. Another big win overnight Wednesday October 28. Rheem has won $20.3 million on the live poker tournament circuit to date.
Chino Rheem Wins PokerGO Tour Sprint Event #1, Las Vegas - How It All Went Down
The $5,300 buy-in No-Limit Hold'em event attracted 92 entries, generating a $460,000 prize pool. Rheem defeated fellow professional Andrew “Chewy” Lichtenberger heads-up to capture the $119,600 first prize.
The decisive sequence was extraordinary:
1. Lichtenberger bluffed on a board of Q-8-6-8-J, holding 9-5.
2. Rheem made a major call with pocket tens, leaving Lichtenberger with very few chips.
3. On the final hand, Lichtenberger moved all-in with 6-5.
4. Rheem called without looking at his cards and revealed 7-2.
5. The board ran A-9-8-4-Q. Neither player paired, so Rheem won with seven-high.
The victory gave Rheem his 10th career PokerGO Tour title and his second PGT tournament win of 2026.
Chino Rheem Big Historic Wins
Year Achievement Prize
2008 WSOP Main Event, 7th $1,772,650
2008 WPT Five Diamond champion $1,538,730
2011 Epic Poker League champion $1,000,000
2013 WPT World Championship winner $1,150,297
2016 WPT Seminole Hard Rock champion $705,885
2019 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure champion $1,567,100
2026 PGT Sprint Event #1 winner $119,600
Chino Rheem Fun Facts
- Despite his strong earnings, Rheem is yet to win a World Series of Poker bracelet.
- Though Rheem represents Los Angeles, he spent a significant amount of his early poker career honing his skills in South Florida at the Seminole Hollywood Casino learning from the masters, Robert and Michael Mizrachi.
A Troubled Past
Rheem as openly admitted to years of addiction-related difficulties, accumulating debts and struggling to retain money despite seven-figure tournament scores.
From CardPlayer Magazine:
The first public sign of distress for Rheem came in 2011, when he recorded his third seven-figure result in the debut event of the short-lived Epic Poker League. Less than a week after that $1 million win, the EPL surprised the poker community by putting Rheem “on probation” for violations of their code of conduct. A press release alleged a failure to pay back debts to other poker players.
After a significant overlay in the second event, the EPL would ultimately fold after just three of five scheduled tournaments were played. It was a messy exit that created animosity in the poker community for, ironically, failing to pay out on an end-of-season prize pool. But the damage to Rheem’s reputation had already been done.
Rheem kept piling up big scores, but each win was followed by jokes. Even broadcast commentators couldn’t resist jabbing about the supposed line of people by the casino cage waiting to collect.
“Let’s say I’ve been playing professional poker 16 or 17 years, I could honestly admit 13 of those years, I didn’t have a fucking clue,” Rheem told hosts Art Parmann and Justin Young. “I was so far gone and lost in the world of addiction, when it comes to gambling and other stuff.”
“I would win seven figures in a tournament, and be broke… PCA for $1.5 million. My good friend Noah Boeken put me in that tournament, so I had half. I saw $750,000. That money was gone within two months. I’ve accumulated a lot of debts, I admit it. I’ve owed the poker world a lot of money, and I would do my best to make payments.”
- Ace King, Gambling911.com
