The Scoop: Joseph Cheong

Joseph Cheong

“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.”