PCA 2019: David “Chino” Rheem wins the Main Event; Rainer Kempe bags two High Rolles; Ramandeep Gural gives India a win

From January 5 to 16, players from all over the world descended upon the gorgeous shores of the Bahamas for the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure 2019. Festivities opened with the highly anticipated PSPC event won by Platinum Pass entry Ramon Colillas. We posted news on that. For the rest of the days, there were 42 events throughout covering all ranges of buy-ins from $330 to $100,000. Listed below are the series biggest winners including results of the Asian force.

David “Chino” Rheem wins the Main Event

David Rheem topped the 865 entries of the $10,300 Main Event. He pocketed $1,567,100 for his fifth career seven-figure payout. Rheem entered the final 6 roundup in the lead which no one was able to penetrate. He eliminated every single player starting with Brian Altman (6th), then charged upwards building as much as a 4:1 lead over his remaining opponents.

After railing Vicent Bosca in 5th place, he amassed over 55% of the chips in play. Pavel Veksler tried next but his overcards failed him to take 4th place. Scott Wellenbach almost doubled up with top pair but Rheems straight on the river sent him tumbling out in 3rd place. Entering heads up against Daniel Strelitz, Rheem was way ahead with a 7:1 advantage. He nailed it shut in just seven hands. With this win, Rheem now has over $10M in live earnings on Hendon Mob.

Final 6 payouts
Prize pool: $8,390,500 – Entries: 865 – ITM: 127 places

1st David “Chino Rheem – USA – $1,567,1000
2nd Daniel Strelitz – USA – $951,480
3rd Scott Wellenbach – Canada – $671,240
4th Pavel Veksler – Ukraine – $503,440
5th Vicent Bosca – Spain – $396,880
6th Brian Altman – USA – $297,020

Among the notable players that cashed outside of the final table were: Daniel Tang (18th), Maria Ho (29th), Byron Kaverman (38th), Randy Lew (43rd), Anthony Zinno (46th), Li Yan (65th), Park Yu Cheung “Sparrow” (79th), Kristen Bicknell (82nd), Ryan Riess (88th), Chin Lim (98th), and Yang Zhang (102nd).

Rainer Kempe wins two events

For German pro Rainer Kempe, he may not have bagged a million like Rheem but he still earned a combined seven figures at the series. Kempe’s first cash was at the $25k No Limit Hold’em event finishing 4th for $177,380. He then proceeded to win two events, the 50k No Limit Hold’em topping the 64 entry field for $908,100 and the $10,200 No Limit Hold’em KO Turbo for $117,280. He shipped $1,202,760 and now has $18.5 Million in live earnings. Pete Chen cashed in 8th place at the latter event for a take of $12,300.

Other High Roller winners

In addition to Kempe, five other events with buy-ins from 25K to 100K saw these players emerge as champions: Sean Winter, Sam Greenwood, Timothy Adams, Justin Bonomo, and Martin Zamani.

The 100K Super High Roller event drew 43 players with 18 re-entering for 61 total. This generated a very rich prize pool of $5,918,220 that 8 players took cuts from. Canadian pro Sam Greenwood closed this one out for a handsome payday of $1,775,460. He also cashed in three other events to bring his total winning at the series to just over $1.9M. He is now closing in on $15M in live earnings.

Event #33 $25K High Roller event attracted the largest of the big buy-in tournaments. This event drew 115 players and 47 re-entries for a prize pool of $3,928,500. Expectedly the field was packed with heavyweights however the title went to Martin Zamani earning his first six figure career win worth $895,110. He defeated German pro Dominik Nitsche at heads up. Zamani crossed into a million in earnings of $1.35M. From the Asian sector, Malaysian pro Chin Lim finished in 19th place.

There was one $50K event in the roster and this one was shipped by Canada’s Timothy Adams. Although the field was small, 18 players and 8 re-entries, the prize pool certainly wasn’t amounting to $1,274,130. Five players got paid. Adams won the largest of $372,508. Also cashing in was Justin Bonomo in 4th place.

From there, Bonomo went on to win the 25K No Limit Hold’em event. He topped a field of 47 entries to bring in $383,650. Bonomo earned over $500K at the series.

Ramandeep Gural wins the $1,100 NLH event

India’s Ramandeep Gural is a new face in our news site without significant victories until now. Gural won the $1,100 No Limit Hold’em event at the PCA overcoming a field of 406 players. He shipped $76,760 making this his largest live tournament cash. Gural also reached the money in the PCA National event and pocketed $2,340 for his 62nd finish.

Among the Asians that cashed in this event were: Wilson Lim (7th), Mike Takayama (22nd), Pete Chen (37th), Kavin Shah (54th), and Park Yu Cheung (60th).

Article by Tricia David