Cheong Takes Huge Step Towards Winning First Bracelet in Event #34: $1,000 Double Stack NLHE

Shirley Ang

Level 39 : 500,000/1,000,000, 1,000,000 ante

After a bit more than seven and a half hours of play, Day 4 of Event #34: $1,000 Double Stack No-Limit Hold’em has come to an end with six players making it to the final day. Joseph Cheong takes a humongous chip lead into the final table with 100,300,000 in chips, which is worth 100 big blinds, when the remaining players return at noon local time on Wednesday, June 19. They will all be guaranteed at least $133,970 but will be targeting that first-place prize of $687,782 and the elusive gold WSOP bracelet.

Cheong has over $6,000,000 in WSOP cashes and three WSOP Circuit rings but is still chasing his maiden bracelet. He has put himself in a fantastic position to do so when play resumes. Cheong is followed by David Ivers who bagged 60,400,000. This will only be Ivers’ sixth ever WSOP cash and according to The Hendon Mob, this will also be his biggest live cash ever, no matter what happens. Closing the podium is Day 3 chip leader, Zinan Xu with 53,900,000 in chips which is still way above average. Xu already has eleven cashes in the WSOP branded tournaments and he’s already guaranteed to more than double his lifetimes WSOP cashes with whatever payout he picks up in this tournament.

Italy’s Andrea Buonocore collected 17,800,000 in his bag at the end of the night. He cashed twice already in the 50th Annual World Series of Poker but will be looking to claim the first bracelet this summer for his home country. Ido Ashkenazi has a lot of work to do with 11,700,000 in his overnight bag but he’s no stranger to the final table stage and will do his utmost best to turn things around. Arianna Son is sitting with the shortest stack of all. She managed to survive the day with 4,500,000 and will be facing an uphill battle to try and be the first woman this summer to win a bracelet. And it would be a great warm-up for her as the Ladies Event starts in two days.

Final Six Seat Draw

Seat	Player	Country	Chip Count	Big Blinds
1	Ido Ashkenazi	United States	11,700,000	12
2	Andrea Buonocore	Italy	17,800,000	18
3	Joseph Cheong	United States	100,300,000	100
4	Zinan Xu	China	53,900,000	54
5	David Ivers	United States	60,400,000	60
6	Arianna Son	United States	4,500,000	5

Out of the 6,214-strong field, 40 players returned to the felt at noon to try and get to the final table stage but this wasn’t cut out for everyone. Within the first twenty minutes of the day, four players were eliminated and the field was reduced to the final four tables of the tournament. Less than an hour later it was already time for a total redraw as there were 27 players left. The 2018 WSOPE Main Event champion, Jack Sinclair was sent to the rail when his ace-six couldn’t beat the pocket tens of Xu. Naor Slobodkoy ran his ace-king into the kings of David Dibernardi.

Tim West went southwards when his shove with pocket fours was called by Ivers who held pocket nines. West flopped a set but Ivers turned the higher set and even improved to quads to seal the deal. Guay scored the only double knock-out of the day when he took on James Pupillo and Andrew Hawskby with a pair of queens. Pupillo’s ace-king and Hawksby’s pocket jacks both picked up loads of outs when the dealer spread out the ace-queen-five-ten board but the five on the river dashed both their hopes as they were eliminated.

Noah Bronstein got his last ten big blinds in with jack-seven and once again it was Ivers who notched another elimination as he held pocket queens. Matthew Wantman also ran into queens but this time it was Ashkenazi who held them. Twenty minutes later Ashkenazi found queens again and he took out Edgardo Rosario. Dibernardi was railed by his parents all day today and yesterday too but ended up bubbling the final table.

Eight hands into the final table, Brock Wilson called for eleven big blinds with ace-queen after Ivers, who held jack-seven, had shoved. Ivers flopped a pair to send Wilson - who had been short for most of the day - to the rail.

Ivan Deyra managed to double up but then lost it all again when his pocket sixes couldn’t beat the king-queen of Cheong. It would then take another ninety minutes before the day would end as Guay was eliminated. He flopped a pair of fives and shoved, unfortunately for him, Ivers held an overpair to bring the day to an end as no further help came on the board for the Canadian.

When the players return to the Amazon room at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino, they will play the 25 minutes and 30 seconds that are left in Level 39, which has a small blind of 500,000, big blind of 1,000,000, and a big blind ante of 1,000,000. Play will continue until someone has won their first ever WSOP bracelet and the PokerNews live reporting team will be on hand to provide you coverage of every single hand that will be played on the final table until the final all-in has been won.

Final Table Results