Joseph Cheong is closing in on another massive score as he is potentially one day away from winning the WSOPC Online Main Event. The World Series of Poker bracelet winner is one of nine players still chasing a $1.2 million first-place prize.
Event #18 of the WSOP Winter Online Circuit series on GGPoker, a $10 million guaranteed tournament, attracted 6,395 entries, each costing $1,700. The winner of this massive online event will take home a gold WSOP Circuit ring and become quite wealthy. After two days of play, only nine competitors remain, each guaranteed at least $123,106. An unknown player using the screen name “iownumind” busted in 10th place ($55,718), bubbling the final table in cruel fashion.
Alexandru Papazian from Romania called an all-in bet with pocket 3’s against “iownumind’s” pocket aces. The board ran out K-7-4-10 before a lucky 3 fell on the river, setting up the final table. Papazian will enter play on Monday fifth in chips with 31 big blinds.
Lithuania’s Paulis Plausinaitis bagged the biggest stack following Day 2 at 95 big blinds. Artem Prostak, who hails from Belarus, finished with the next-largest stack at 68 big blinds. He’s followed by Cheong, the only American left in the field, with 63 big blinds. Online poker player “likeboy” of China holds steady in fourth place (59 bigs), while “turkey1” from China sits in sixth place behind Papazian (27 bigs). “BetAddict” of Israel is next with 25 bigs, while Finland’s Joni Jouhkimainen (17 bigs) and “DaiMing14139” from China (11 bigs) have the small stacks.
Most of the players at the final table have enough chips to splash around a bit. The finale likely won’t go by too quickly, considering four of the nine players have 59 or more big blinds, and no player is under 10 bigs.
Another Massive Score for Cheong?
Cheong has been a No-Limit Hold’em tournament crusher for many years. He’s been especially dominant in massive field events, including the 2010 WSOP Main Event in Las Vegas where he finished in third place for more than $4 million.
Cheong won a bracelet in 2019, beating out 6,214 players in the $1,000 Double Stack No-Limit Hold’em event for $687,782. Now, he’s in good position to win a tournament with an almost identical number of entries on Monday.
