Rheem Calls Down a Bluff, Then Wins With Seven-High to Take PGT Sprint Opener

A bluff catch with pocket tens flipped the final; Chino Rheem finished with seven-high to win PGT Sprint Event #1 and $119,600.

The title was settled with a hand that looked nothing like a high-stakes championship showpiece. Andrew Lichtenberger moved all in holding six-five. Chino Rheem called without looking at his cards, and turned over seven-two. The board ran ace-nine-eight-four-queen, pairing neither player's hand. Rheem's seven played. The first title of the 2026 PokerGO Tour Sprint was his, along with $119,600 and 179 tour points.

Yet the strangest-looking showdown was not the moment that had decided which way this match was heading. One hand earlier, with the two veterans fighting heads-up in the PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas, Rheem had called Lichtenberger's bluff with pocket tens on a queen-eight-six-eight-jack board. That call wrested control of the match. The seven-high finish was the exclamation mark.

It gave the Sprint its opening champion, but it also strengthened the credentials of a player already deep into another competitive season.

The bluff call that changed the final battle

A heads-up final can turn on a single decision, and this one offered a clean example. The board was queen-eight-six-eight-jack. Lichtenberger made his bluff; Rheem was prepared to call with two tens despite the overcard and paired board. PokerGO's published account identifies the call as the turning point before the final hand.

The attraction of that sequence is not that it supplies an excuse to guess what either player felt. Their private thoughts are not part of the official record. What the hands establish is enough: Rheem made a consequential call in a pressure situation, then finished the contest almost immediately after it.

The last hand added a quirky conclusion. Six-five against seven-two is hardly the premium-card confrontation that highlight reels are built around, but the board kept both hands unpaired. Rheem's seven kicker beat Lichtenberger's six. There was no imagined river miracle, no invented speech and no need to dramatise a hand beyond what actually happened.

A 92-entry field, not a two-man exhibition

Before that duel came a $460,000 prize pool, 92 entries and a field that paid 14 places. The $5,300 buy-in event opened a Sprint series of individually contested tournaments rather than a single winner-take-all championship.

Jim Collopy went out on the money bubble, after which the field narrowed toward a seven-player final table. John Riordan fell in seventh and Jesse Lonis in sixth. Michael Berk eliminated Neil Warren in fifth, but Berk's own run ended in fourth at Rheem's hands.

Patrick Leonard was next to leave. Lichtenberger's pocket kings stood up against Leonard's ace-queen, ending Leonard's run in third place and setting the two finalists against one another. Leonard collected $55,200; Berk received $41,400. Lichtenberger's runner-up prize was $75,900, while Rheem took the top payment.

Those figures tell a more complete story than a winner photograph or the headline cheque alone. The field had recognizable contenders, meaningful eliminations and a prize ladder that grew steeper as the evening moved toward its conclusion.

A victory with consequences beyond Event #1

Rheem's first Sprint title did not emerge from an otherwise quiet 2026. PokerGO identified it as his second PGT win of the season and 10th career PGT title. His earlier success had come in February, when he won the $5,300 H.O.R.S.E. event at PGT Mixed Games for $112,100.

The Sprint victory pushed him further into the year-end picture. In the standings snapshot published with the 28 October report, Rheem climbed to 19th, with 1,220 season points from 23 cashes, including two wins. Those numbers describe the table on that reporting date; they are not a claim that his position remained unchanged through November.

The season-long implications were not limited to the champion. In the same dated update, Lichtenberger rose to 22nd on 1,187 points and Berk to 30th on 1,114. The PGT Championship qualification picture was already moving as competitors contested the final weeks of the season.

That is the attraction of a short, concentrated tour sprint: a single event delivers a champion, but a string of events can reshape a season.

The finishing order

| Finish | Player | Prize | |---|---|---:| | 1 | Chino Rheem | $119,600 | | 2 | Andrew Lichtenberger | $75,900 | | 3 | Patrick Leonard | $55,200 | | 4 | Michael Berk | $41,400 | | 5 | Neil Warren | $32,200 | | 6 | Jesse Lonis | $23,000 | | 7 | John Riordan | $18,400 |

One champion crowned, six more chances to change the story

The opening result had its own sporting identity: Rheem survived a deep field, reached heads-up against Lichtenberger, made the crucial bluff catch and ended the contest in an unexpected fashion. It was not the whole Sprint, and it did not settle the Player of the Year race. Those were still moving targets.

Event #2 would produce another champion, while the remaining schedule shifted from $5,300 tournaments to $10,500 contests. For anyone tracking the late-season standings, that meant more opportunities for players already close to the qualification line to change their position.

Rheem left the opener with the trophy and the cheque. The lasting sporting moment was the decision that came before the final hand: two tens, a dangerous board, and a call that tilted the contest toward him.

Primary sources

• PokerGO Tour: Chino Rheem Wins 2026 PGT Sprint Event #1 (28 October 2026)
• PokerGO Tour: Event #1 live report and final table

Original Poker Pulse match report based on attributed official live reporting. Hand sequences, payouts and standings are sourced; no eyewitness reporting, interviews or invented quotations are claimed.