Joseph Cheong has finally earned his first bracelet in the Event #34: $1,000 Double Stack No-Limit Hold’em of the 2019 World Series of Poker (WSOP) at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino. Cheong took home the first-place prize of $687,782 for his victory after defeating a massive field of 6,214 players. With this major win, the player has taken his total live tournament earnings to over $6,300,000.
The eventual winner Cheong held a decent stack during major part of the tournament and eventually he bagged a massive chip lead for the final day with 100 big blinds in the bag. He played some top-notch poker and was responsible for four eliminations at the final table.
With tons of experience, multiple final tables, three Circuit rings, and a massive chip lead, Cheong didn’t need much preparation for the final day, which started with 6 players to battle it out for the title. Within the first eight hands of play, there were just three players left. Thereafter, Cheong busted Xu and entered heads-up against David Ivers. Both players played their best game with the chip lead changing several times between them. Ivers had started the official final table as the chip leader but when the heads-up started, Cheong held more than a 3 to 1 chip advantage against Ivers.
The heads-up battle lasted an hour. Cheong kept chipping up, although Ivers found a double up once. Ivers put his last chips at risk with Ad-3h after calling a shove from Cheong with Kc Js. The board ran out 5 K 10 8 9. Cheong flopped a pair of kings and the turn and river bricked for Ivers and he was eliminated in 2nd place. Ivers earned $424,791, while Cheong earned $687,782 for grand win.
Team India
This event saw many Indians in action and 8 of them scored ITM finishes. Ashish Ahuja ran deepest among Indians, finishing 15th for for $37,421. He was followed by Yasheel Doddanavar (68th for $8,685), Aditya Sushant (136th for $4,501), Vinod Megalmani (139th for $4,501), Madhav Gupta (716th for $1,690), Dhaval Mudgal (723rd for $1,690 ), Gokul Parvathaneni (890th for $1,499) and Kartik Ved (907th for $1,499).
Final Table Payouts (USD):
| 1 | Joseph Cheong | $687,782 |
| 2 | David Ivers | $424,791 |
| 3 | Zinan Xu | $314,875 |
| 4 | Andrea Buonocore | $235,099 |
| 5 | Arianna Son | $176,820 |
| 6 | Ido Ashkenazi | $133,970 |
| 7 | David Guay | $102,258 |
| 8 | Ivan Deyra | $78,638 |
| 9 | Brock Wilson | $60,930 |