David “Chino” Rheem: Man On the Run?
It has happened so many times before. There is a person who is hardly known to the public. Then that person hits the limelight. But even before the proverbial 15 seconds of fame are over the cupboard opens and skeletons start tumbling out. This is exactly what has happened with David “Chino” Rheem.
Rheem has been known within the poker fraternity as an up and coming tournament player. His total tournament earnings since 2005 have been listed around the $600,000 mark, which is nothing to write home about. Especially when more than half of these come from a single event – a WSOP 2006 preliminary in which he placed second. And then this week Rheem made it to the final table of the WSOP 2008 Main Event. This assures him of at least $900,000 in prize money, which could go all the way to $9.1 million if he wins.
And then the news broke. Rheem has an alive warrant for his arrest. Sun Sentinel, which came out with the news, says that Rheem has multiple convictions to his name in Broward County, including convictions for felonies. The charges include dealing in stolen property, burglary, larceny and possession of marijuana. All this happened eight years ago and Rheem was sentenced to four months in jail with 30 months probation. Then in 2003 he was slapped with a misdemeanor trespassing charge in Hollywood. He did not appear in court. Therefore the court was compelled to issue a warrant for his arrest, which is still active.
Understandably Rheem was unavailable for comment. Rheem is a member of the PokerStars team. In fact six of the nine players who made it to the WSOP 2008 Main Event have been sponsored by PokerStars. PokerStars have denied any knowledge of Rheem’s earlier tryst with the law. So have the WSOP officials. The only person who has spoken about Rheem since the news broke is Steve Watkins, the former poker manager of the Seminole Hollywood Casino where Rheem played a lot of his early poker. Watkins says that Rheem started playing there as soon as he was of legal age. Another regular who played with Rheem was Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi, who is a big name in the poker world today. Mizrachi was one of the players Rheem beat on the way to the final nine. Watkins remembers Rheem as ‘a very polite young man’, who learnt by watching others and playing a lot himself.
Whether Rheem plays the finals scheduled to be held in November or not, ESPN has hit the jackpot. This year the live televised finals have been delayed in order to allow ESPN to build up momentum by telecasting the earlier events. These telecasts are scheduled to begin on July 22 with the telecast of the final table of Event 1. And as they say in the TV world ‘any publicity is good publicity’ and Rheem has handed ESPN a goldmine on a platter.
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