Cheong's quote and his play

Cheong had a quote in the November Issue of Bluff Magazine where he said "When I actually think about winning, I want second place. Im not afraid of coming first, but if I had my choice I'd prefer second." He went on to say he was too lazy for all of the Public Appearances the champ has to make.

Then last night I think he proved that point. He's the chip leader with 3 left and he Preflop raises with A7 offsuit. Gets reraised. He pops it again. Duhamel 5 bets it with queens and Cheong pushes allin and doesnt catch the Ace. Im sorry but after a 5 bet he's committed and you know youve got to be a dog going into it.

IMO, he stuck to his word and did not want to win first place. I didnt like it. Id rather seen Racener with a better chance but by then Duhamel had over 80% of the chips in play.

Anyone else find this quote and his play fishy???

Hes an idiot...why play the tourney then? Sighhhhhhh

The article also quoted him as saying he wouldn't throw it, though. The difference in prize money between first and third was over $4 million, and I can't see him just disregarding that. It's more likely that he was either tired and impatient, and/or he had a read that really made him think he was good there.

Alot of the time 3-handed in a tourney A-7 suited or off is ahead of the other 2 players random holdings. But with the action you would have to at least consider you were facing a really good hand. I think if he was facing the same action from Racener he would have folded his hand but with Duhamel you never know. He may have actually thought he was ahead or up against a small pocket pair.

his commercial for FullTilt said that he didn't want to get first because he didnt want to be remembered for only that accomplishment, he wanted to be one of the best players in the world.

I don't know what that means exactly.

maybe he doesnt understand variance. lol.

It was inevitable that Cheong and Duhamel would clash heads with their styles

This forum had people argueing that Chan should have obviously folded his pocket kings against his opponents pocket Aces.

And now we have people justifying Cheong's 6 bet allin with A7offsuit. There was only 1.4 million difference in 3rd and 2nd... I guess he thought his A7 was good.

LOL it had nothing to do with him thinking his A7o was good in that spot... please.
First question - did you watch every hand played while tourney was playing? (not the tv coverage).
Second question - were you on the final table... & were you on tables prior to the final table with Duhamel & playing as Cheong? (I'm assuming 'no'.. cuz I'm pretty sure you're not Cheong). So... do you have any remote clue as to what the metagame situation was here in this spot? a) he wasn't pot committed after the 4bet, b) he obviously assumed (wrongly ) that Duhamel wasn't strong enough to call (with Racener bein' short). AND.. Duhamel even 5bet an amount so that he could get away from it... or to make it look like he could get away from it.
There had been prior 3betting, 4betting & 5betting between these two earlier in tourney. There's alot more going on than meets the viewer's eye.

I'm not 'defending' Cheong's play but am first to admit that I don't know what he was thinking, what Duhamel was thinking he was thinking... or what he thought Duhamel thought he thought he was thinking.... & so on & so on. Cheong is a great player & imo he played better than the rest of the players on the final table.. by a longshot. Unfortunately blew it when he 6bet w A7o (if Duhamel folds there though.... .. we're screaming genius no doubt, lol).

Phil Helmuth asked Cheong about the game afterwards & Cheong stated, ~1/2 the time he was bluffing. Helmuth also had great comments to say about Cheong's play in the tournament & he also said he thought he outplayed all of the others on the table.

heres the video i was talking about
http://taopoker.blogspot.com/2010/10...ideos-joe.html

considering how easily your cashing, maybe you should give him some lessons.

ya i find this confusing. at the main event biggest poker event ever! and you let it come down to this kind of situation? it didnt make sence to me and i beleive screwed racner. he deserved it not duhamel

I wanted to see cheong take it down but he had a complete blow up

I think it was just a sick played hand by both and Duhamel got the better of Cheong.

LOL at comparing this to Chan. Situations are totally different. 3-handed with MASSIVE ICM considerations vs. someone 5-betting a nit UTG is not remotely comparable.

Duhamel himself said he has 5-bet bluffs in his range there. Duhamel gave the false impression that Cheong still had fold equity, and Cheong made maybe the sickest play (since Moneymaker) in WSOP history. kudos to both imo; I think A TON of people fold the QQ in that spot.

Considering gameflow this type of massive hand was pretty much an inevitability (to wit: see A2o vs. 64s hand for 30 million chips or so; Duhamel calling off his stack with A9o vs. 2nd tightest player at the table; Duhamel making a stand after getting pushed around by Cheong and getting pushed off AA postflop and AK preflop earlier by others, etc.).

It's funny. If the other guys folds QQ, suddenly it's now the Greatest play in the history of poker. Jump on the bandwagon guys, have a fun ride!

^This. Same thing with Affleck's play with AA against Duhamel, a safe card falling on the river instead and we'd be gushing about how Affleck played aces great and extracted maximum value... its fine to analyze hands and say 'okay, this is what should have been done in hindsight' but to blatantly dismiss the losing hand as playing it wrong... i dont think thats right.

He could have won. He was the better player & had more chips than both.

His quote seems like a "cop-out". Not sure about "fishy" though. He's a great player, far from a fish.

"In 2010, Cheong entered his first WSOP Main Event after winning his seat through an online qualifier at Full Tilt Poker."

FTP had/have a promotion on (AFAIK) where if you qualify via FTP and then win the ME they give you $10 million over 10 years.

So the difference wasn't $4 million but $14 million

Didnt mean "fishy" in a bad poker sesnse. Meant it looked questionable like it looked like he didnt want that first place responsiblities like he'd said in Bluff.

Don't forget that Duhamel is almost a lock for second and Cheong knows this when he 6 bets bluffs with A7. If Duhamel is holding say 88-JJ/AQ/AK/facing a 6 bet shove, he is usually folding or it's very hard to call in that spot. If he folds, he still has Racener covered over 2:1.

Cheong ran all over that table and Duhamel. Of course, we missed tons of hands that probably went on between the two/three of them.

As for Cheong saying he doesn't want to win. It could because he doesn't want the responsibilities of being a WSOP winner. Maybe he is just happy with the money. Also, I see it as being a bit psychological as well. Every other player at that table was playing it safe trying to move up and win, while Cheong was very active and aggressive. He was playing like he didn't care about the out come and that can be pretty dangerous.

Wow, i wonder if that's full tilt's responsive action to snatch up main event winners from Poker Stars.

Think they've had the offer on for a couple of years

Wow, think I hit a nerve.... Just giving my opinion. Thoughts that what we did in forums.... Thanks for the feedback

Did Cada or Eastgate qualify through FTP though?

This is 3handed, there's a much shorter stack at the table, Duhamel won't want to get involved in a big pot against the chip leader without a big hand so by the time he 5bets I don't think he'll ever be bluffing there and there's no way he's folding either. This would be the time for Cheong to cut his losses and move on, his A7o is crushed by Duhamel's range in this situation.

Just been hunting on Google, Eastgate apparently paid $10k to enter. Cada was wearing Pokerstars gear in the pictures from the final table so can't have qualified through FTP

Cada was an UB player pre-final table last year.

both Eastgate and Cada wore PokerStars at the final table.

Cada signed an $1,000,000 deal for making the final table and prior to the November 9.
I remember reading that PokerStars guarantees their sponsored players even more money when they win, but I can't find that article atm.

That solves that, they probably bought him in

He probably didnt mean it but sort of means it in the way that he doesnt want all the media coverage and appearances that come with winning the main event. It would probably affect his online play if he had all this media covering him.

I remember Jamie Gold saying he'd rather be second too and we all know how it ended... They probably mean it, but in the end the money, if nothing else, speaks louder.

It's interesting because some of the runners up have gone on to have great results. Williams,Demidov, Lam and Wasicka for sure

If it's Racener instead of Duhamel in that spot with QQ, he folds.

I've heard some BS in my time, but never like some of the comments in this thread, and that includes Cheong's quote.

nope I don't find it fishy. It was just a way of him saying he doesn't care about the fame, etc. and just wants to be a solid poker player. It just ended up happening the way it did.

Nice!

Cada was backed for MainEvent last year. Backer was in the stands wearing yellow with the rest of the group there (hint, backer was the one giving him the biggest hugs!!)

...no, not necessarily. In fact it's highly unlikely that they bought him in. They will have just paid him a sum of money to wear their logo when they found out he was going to be on a TV table.

Interesting thing about Cheong and the coming second quote. Paul Wasicka has said that he doesn't actually regret coming second to Jamie Gold because he got to keep at least a little bit of his anonymity and there was less pressure. Less money, obviously, but on balance he's said he didn't mind.

Being OK with ending up in that spot and going in hoping / aiming for it to happen are two very different things though...