Event #72: $10,000 Super Turbo Bounty No-Limit Hold’em (8-Handed) at the 2025 World Series of Poker started at the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas at midday. Just 15 hours later, the 809 entrants to this tournament had been whittled down to just one.
Rainer Kempe not only won a highly coveted World Series of Poker Bracelet but also earned a huge top prize of $892,701, which has been supplemented by an additional $27,000 from other players bounties, and $3,000 from his own.
The first-place prize saw an almost $300,000 increase from last year’s event, where Frank Funaro earned $612,997 for topping the field.
This victory takes Kempe’s career live earnings to well over $23,000,000, as well as adding him to the list of highly-decorated WSOP bracelet winners.
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Kempe has came close to winning a bracelet before, after placing fourth in Event #42: $600 Mixed No Limit Hold'em/Pot Limit Omaha Deepstack 8-Handed back in 2019 and sixth in 2021’s Event #8: $7,777 No Limit Hold'em - Lucky 7's High Roller ONLINE.
Day’s Action
Once play started at noon yesterday, eliminations came in thick and fast, with everyone wanting to score the $3,000 bounty earned by sending an opponent home.
Some huge names went home early on, with Mustapha Kanit, Sean Winter, Lawrence Brandt, and Raj Vohra busting within the first few hours of the day. The first of these, however, used his single opportunity for reentry to build a stack back up and make a cash.
A total of 123 players ended up in the money, with Justin Vaysman and Isiah Ditoto being the official bubble boys. Thankfully, the two didn’t go home empty-handed, as they split a min-cash of $13,581.
Erik Seidel.
Following the bubble, knockouts started coming even thicker and faster than before, with poker Hall of Famers Erik Seidel and John Juanda settling for the smallest score, along with Chance Kornuth, and Arthur Morris, who busted brutally.
Yet another couple of Hall of Fame members would be soon to depart, as Jennifer Harman had her aces cracked by quads, and Brian Rast, too, would be eliminated before having the chance to make the final three tables.
Action did come to somewhat of a standstill when there were just 24 players remaining. As pay jumps started to increase and the value of bounties remained stable, players were less keen to shove. Lengthier tanks, tighter folds, and less risky calls took more than two hours to thin the field down to the eight players of the official final table.
During those two and a bit hours, actress and poker aficionado, Arden Cho bust early on, Justin Saliba followed shortly, and Robert Cowen just missed out on the final table.
Arden Cho.
Journey to the Bracelet
Kempe’s first WSOP cash came all the way back in 2015, and since then, he has made an incredibly impressive 24 cashes. With plenty of wins to his name in other events across the world, he has finally added another bracelet to his already impressive trophy cabinet.
Kempe came to the final table fourth in chips, and had to overcome big stack Xiaoyao Ma, Japanese crusher Ryuta Nakai, and big-talking high roller Martin Kabrhel.
Despite having just taken one down, Kempe isn’t the biggest fan of “outdated” bounty tournaments, making this victory all the more impressive.
Winner’s Reaction
Rainer Kempe and rail.
Speaking with PokerNews, Kempe was as humble as ever. “It feels like cheating a little bit,” he said when asked about picking up his first WSOP victory, referring to the fact that the one-day tournament is less of a grind than its three-day counterparts.
The gruelling nature of the structure, entailing a 16-hour shift at the table, was “not at all” a struggle for him, and he powered through with little difficulty.
“I feel like they’re tough to learn,” he said, referring to turbo and super turbo structured tournaments. However, he has an advantage due to his “sit-and-go background” that helped him a lot against players with less experience in the format. He “enjoys [turbos] a lot,” and it has shown on his path to victory.
The additional bounty equity “made a huge difference” to how he set up his approach, especially earlier on in the day, as they are so much more valuable.
“You kind of forget about them later on,” he added, which was shown as he played for the win and the huge score up top, to which the bounties minnows in comparison.
After over 14 hours of competition, Kempe is going to find out which members of his rail are “up for a drink, or something,” and judging by the noise they made to help him through the final table, most of them certainly will be.
That being said, most of them also have more poker to play, as does Kempe himself. He plans to carry on playing until he busts the main event, which will signal an end to his time in Las Vegas.
That brings PokerNews live coverage of this event, to an end, however the action will be continuing in the coming weeks, so make sure to stay tuned as the World Series of Poker’s official reporting partner keeps you up to date with all of the action.
