The Scoop: Joseph Cheong

Joseph Cheong has more than $5.1 million in lifetime tournament earnings, with four titles and 77 cashes to his name. The young Californian was thrown into the public eye after years of quiet success when he made the 2010 World Series of Poker main event final table. He worked his way to three-handed play with the chip lead, but went on to finish third after playing a gigantic pot against Jonathan Duhamel, who he barely covered. With a short-stacked John Racener biding his time, many thought that Cheong’s six-bet shove with A 7 was too aggressive. Cheong lost the hand to Duhamel’s Q Q, giving the eventual champ a nearly insurmountable lead heading into heads-up play. Cheong stopped by the set of The Scoop to give his side of the story in this now infamous hand.

“At the time, I think that Duhamel was actually being pretty active three and four handed. There were a couple of times where he opened and Racener shoved on him, or he three-bet me and I four-bet him. He was definitely getting played back at a lot, and you could tell that he was getting frustrated.”

“So when the hand came up I had about 95 million, he had 85 million. Racener had around 30 million, and to me wasn’t really much of a factor. There was one hand where he had 17 big blinds five-handed and flat-called with pocket tens preflop, so you could tell that he doesn’t want to bust. It was a great idea for him, and as a result I was basically playing heads-up the whole time while still actually being three-handed.”

“So it folds to me in the small blind and I have A 7, and normally I would limp in there in order to avoid just this kind of confrontation, but I had folded the past two small blinds to Duhamel and I remember thinking that he had to give me credit on this one. So I raised it, to stick it in preflop or continuation-bet and take it down on the flop. He reraised me, which I actually expected. He is a really aggressive and solid player, and knows that since I folded two, I’m probably raising.”

“With a hand like A 7, I could just call, but I really didn’t want to play with Jonathan out of position when we are the two biggest stacks. I thought there was a very good chance that I had the best hand, it was three-handed and I had an ace against a very aggressive player. So I reraised it fairly large, making him decide if he wants to risk his whole stack. In retrospect, I probably could have made it even a little bigger, but then he made a small reraise for about a quarter of his stack.”

“I just remember thinking that his three-bet range preflop is his whole range of hands that he would want to play against me, and then anything that has a lot of playability post-flop, he would never be five-betting. He would just be peeling my four-bet in position with things like pocket tens and lower, eight-seven suited, etcetera. I just remember thinking that his range for reraising me again just has to be complete trash like king-five and hands like pocket aces, kings, queens and ace-king. I have an ace in my hand, which is a blocker, so I remember thinking that he will fold a lot of his hands, and when he does call I have something like 30 percent equity versus his range. Given that I thought that his three-betting range was almost his whole range, and that he is five-betting all of his trash hands and his premiums, I thought he had a big enough range that I could go all-in on, and if he does call I could just hit an ace and win the whole tournament. He actually told me, right after the hand happened, that he meant to raise a lot bigger. He made it 22 million, and he said he meant to make it more like 29 million. That would have looked a lot more like he was committing himself, and I probably would have had to fold because I wouldn’t expect him to fold to my shove.”