Joseph Cheong Bio

For some players, it might have proved to be too much to handle, a fatal turning point that launched them into tilt and sent their chips spewing. But for Joseph Cheong, it was merely a bump in the road as he recovered from one of the nastiest beats of day 8 of the 2010 WSOP main event to still make the November Nine with a healthy chip stack, good enough for third place overall.

With 15 players remaining, Cheong got his money in good, then watched as the turn and river came out horribly wrong to see most of his stack slide across the felt. After three-betting aces preflop, his aggressive image almost made him the massive chip leader heading into the break after Filippo Candio called off his entire stack, holding just 7-5 on a board of 6-6-5. But running cards gave Candio a straight and sent Cheong down the leader board.

But the young pro never faltered. After losing the hand, he shrugged, slid over his chips, and immediately began rebuilding his stack.

“I just thought about how lucky I was to have gotten this far in the first place,” Cheong said he told himself in the moment. “I’m still alive and I still have plenty of chips.”

Sure enough, he rebounded well to secure one of the top spots at the final table.

Born in Seoul, Korea, Cheong moved to America when he was about six or seven and earned two degrees at UCSD, a B.S. in psychology and a B.A. in a double concentration, mathematics and economics. But even with that diploma, he admits he’s never had a 9-to-5 job, going right into the poker world in full force after college. Cheong had more than $300,000 in winnings before making the 2010 WSOP main-event final table, primarily from playing online.