David “Chino” Rheem hails from Los Angeles, California. He is a professional poker player and has been playing for about 10 years. His first major tournament cash came at the 2005 World Series of Poker. That same year, Rheem cashed in the main event, as well. Since then, Rheem has followed the tournament circuit, cashing in WPT preliminary tournaments as well as more WSOP events along the way including a near-bracelet win in the 2006 $1,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em rebuy event. He finished second for almost $328,000. At the 2008 WSOP, Rheem cashed in the $5,000 mixed-hold’em event, and also made the final table of the $10,000 main event. He will join the other eight players in November when play reconvenes. He is guaranteed to make at least $$900,670. Here he tells CardPlayer.com how he made it to the final nine.
"Day 1 started off great, like I got off to a good chip lead right away. A couple of people gave me gifts, where I had the nuts and they just shipped it on me. I ended day 1 with over 100,000 in chips, so day 1 was awesome. Day 1 was probably the easiest day out of all the days I played. Day 5 we only started with 27 people, and all we had to do was get rid of two tables to get to the final nine, and it just took forever. At one point I was in good position to make the final table, and the way I play tournament poker sometimes, I get out of line, and I played a couple pots where I was definitely out of line and it cost me a lot of chips.
But I didn’t give up and I managed to get my chips back. It was just a long crucial day, and if I didn’t have my friends with me there to support me and to let me know, ‘cool out’, I don’t think I would have made it.
Just in hands like, I played a couple pots where I shouldn’t have really been in the pot. I should have not been involved period. I should have folded preflop, and instead I had that little ‘brain fart’, and decided to try to out-play somebody and just pick up the pot. So, I gave away a lot of chips, over like two and a half million in one hand, and two million in another hand. I should have totally not been in the hand. These are the hands that [for] somebody like me, I know better than to play these hands and I do it anyway, so I can only get mad at myself. But when you do it, you’re totally upset and blown because you have such a good chip position, and I didn’t truly appreciate what my stack was worth. So, those hands I got frustrated over.
Sometimes I know where I’m at in the hand, and I get stupid. Like there was one hand I played where the board happened to be J-10-6-6 with two diamonds, and I had a flush draw, but on the turn I got raised when the board paired, and I knew right away I was suppose to throw it away. Like I already know I’m supposed to throw it away, but I just gave away two and a half million chips in the hand before, and instead of throwing it away I called a raise on the turn, drawn to a hand that I’m already drawing dead to. I don’t like paying people off a lot, and when it’s a river bet faced to me and I’m forced to make a decision, I’m pretty good at knowing if I have the best hand or not. Sometimes I’ll still pay it off when I’m wrong but I’m pretty good at knowing when I’m beat or not. So, I think that’s a good aspect of my game, where I can survive, and not pay people off.
I mean this is all surreal, this all happened yesterday so I’m still taking everything in. I just want to relax. I don’t really wanna think too much about the final table because I think if I do think too much about it, it’s going to get in my head too much. I honestly feel like I’m the best player on that table, that I can definitely win the tournament. This whole main event, I’ve had a clear head, everything that my friends told me to do, I’ve done, you know like, I never partied or drank or anything like that. I just played and went to bed. So for these three months I don’t really want to be in party mode, I want to try and have a Zen calm type mode, so I can just go back to the final table, and do what I gotta go.
Each day from Nov. 1 to Nov. 9 CardPlayerEurope.com presents the 2008 World Series of Poker main event finalists — the November Nine — in their own words.
