Day 5 of the 2013 World Poker Tour (WPT) World Championship should be one of the shorter days of a major tournament we have ever seen. Tuesday saw the field of the final Main Event of WPT Season XI narrowed from 24 to just eight, leaving only two more eliminations until the six-handed final table is determined. At that point, the tournament will adjourn until tomorrow, when a champion will be crowned.
Today’s final eight has heads spinning in the poker world. Sitting atop the leaderboard are two of the most despised players in poker over the last couple years, Chino Rheem and Erick Lindgren. Rheem, lording over the field with 4.8 million chips, fell out of favor about two years ago when it was revealed that he had racked up debt to several fellow players with no apparent intention of paying anything back. Will Molson started the string of stories when he posted on Two Plus Two about how he agreed to transfer Rheem $20,000 online to use for tournament buy-ins, but after accidentally sending $40,000, Rheem refused to pay him back.
Joseph “subiime” Cheong said that he gave Rheem $40,000 in exchange for a piece of Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi’s action in the 2010 WSOP Main Event (where Mizrachi placed 5th for $2.3 million), but it turned out that though Rheem did have a piece of Mizrachi, he had sold it to multiple people in a scam akin to that in The Producers.
Ben “benba” Lamb and others also told the poker community of their financial problems with Rheem.
It all came to a head in August 2011 when the Epic Poker League placed Rheem on probation just a week after he won its Main Event, citing violations of the league’s code of conduct.
Rheem has reportedly paid down portions of his debts.
Erick Lindgren, who enters Wednesday with 2.518 million chips, is coming off a stint at Morningside Recovery to treat his gambling addiction, which makes the fact that he is playing in a $25,000 buy-in poker tournament all the more interesting.
Early last year, stories began surfacing (again on Two Plus Two) about Lindgren’s failure to meet his obligations in several fantasy football leagues. When the debts were tallied, it was determined that he owed people over $100,000 in fantasy football winnings.
Later, famed NBA sports bettor and successful poker player Haralabos Voulgaris revealed that Lindgren has owed him a sum totaling in the upper-six figures for years, stemming from Lindgren’s sports betting debts that Voulgaris ended up assuming. When Full Tilt Poker went under, so did Lindgren’s ability to pay Voulgaris back.
Speaking of Full Tilt, in the famous post-Black Friday interview conducted by PokerNews.com, Howard Lederer revealed that Chris Ferguson had agreed to loan Lindgren $2 million from Full Tilt’s coffers, but accidentally transferred him the money twice. Lindgren pocketed the excess.
In an interview published in the January issue of Bluff, Lindgren admits to his debts and that it was his sports betting, not poker, that was out of control. He said he wants to pay back what he owes, but as he doesn’t have much left, it is going to be a slow process. For him, it starts with getting his life back in order and getting back to making money at the poker tables.
It sounds like there might be a long line of railbirds waiting for Rheem and Lindgren at the cashier when this tournament is over.
On a more positive note, also in the final eight is Daniel Negreanu, who is gunning for his third consecutive official final table in a major event. He previously won the World Series of Poker Asia Pacific Main Event in April and placed fourth in the European Poker Tour Grand Final earlier this month.
Play resumes at noon Pacific time on Wednesday as just two eliminations are needed to reach the televised six-handed final table at the WPT World Championship.
2013 World Poker Tour World Championship – Day 4 Chip Counts
1. Chino Rheem – 4,839,000
2. Erick Lindgren – 2,518,000
3. Jonathan Roy – 1,987,000
4. Matt Hyman – 1,940,000
5. Brandon Steven – 1,235,000
6. David Peters – 858,000
7. Rocco Palumbo – 680,000
8. Daniel Negreanu – 545,000
