Because choker really equates to the same as trying to put immense pressure on your opponent?

You people need a dictionary and some english lessons. I never said anywhere in my post that it was "good poker".

Putting immense pressure on opponent = Good.
6-betting ace-rag in that spot = Not so good.

Yes, it took balls, and yes, it was impressive that he had the guts to do it. But to borrow an old phrase, "he has more guts than brains".

I completely understand Duhamel had said that he had been thinking of 5-betting light at some point to play back at Cheong. BUT, here's why I will always say it was a dumb move:

Duhamel MIN 5-bet. If he had just said "enough is enough of Cheong 4-betting me, I'm going to make a stand here", he probably would have made a decent sized 5-bet, or 5-bet shove. The MIN 5-bet is not him saying "enough is enough, I can't let you continue to aggro your way over this table". The min 5-bet there is "I've got a monster, I want to get as much money as possible into this pot".

Maybe I'm putting too much emphasis on the fact that it was a min 5-bet, but one of the first things I learned on this board was that moreso than phsyical tells, moreso than amount of time it takes to make the move, moreso than virtually anything else, bet sizing is the key to figuring out what the other guy has. A min 5-bet, to me, is a sign of an absolute monster, because you're giving Cheong ridiculous odds to just call and see a flop, even if he's looking at complete rags.

I still may call if I'm Cheong, see if I spike an Ace and go from there, or try a sick flop bluff, depending on the board. But shoving after a min 5-bet? IMO, and let me say flat out that Cheong is 1000x the player I will ever be, but IMO, it was obvious Duhamel had a strong enough hand that he's not letting go to a shove. Live to fight another day, you've been running over the table, let this one go and go back to running the table over again.

This comment puts me on mega tilt.

OK now take your thinking one level higher and consider that if Duhamel is bluffing he would want to take the line that looks most like a big hand.

thats the thing.you have to be only one level ahead

Noobish observation: if Duhamel's bluffing he wants Cheong to fold, but a minraise gives Cheong a good price to call. Hence, Duhamel is almost never bluffing when he minraises.

Duhamel's A9o all in call against Grinder's 33 is way worse than
Cheong's A7o all in bet against Duhamel's QQ

Mizrachi's shove was bad in the first place. Duhamel showed he wants to gamble.

why? we know and saw he had 3's, I've seen other doing it over and over, it's a good move, you basically can't or shouldn't call

Once again, its all table image. Grinder won 15% of the total hands played on the final table, that's including the 80 or so hands after he got felted. MM was raising and stealing every chance he got. Barry even tweeted that grinder was showing his experience and putting a show on the ft, he did get his chipstack to almost 70million. I'll find the tweet and post it.

Barry tweet... "Grinder must be closing in on the chip lead"
couple tweets later- "Grinder picking up pots, experience is starting to show."

makes even less sence to call all in there with a9o

I know, and sometimes it can work - Jeff Shulman value bet bluff last year at the WSOP comes to mind...

But, a min-bet bluff usually causes all kinds of issues. Let's say Cheong reads Duhamel's min-bet as super strength - he's still getting insane odds to call, see a flop and try to suck out. Duhamel knows Cheong's 4-bet range is fairly wide, so if Cheong calls the 5-bet because of the great price he's getting, he's going to have no idea where he is when the flop comes something ugly, like JT8 or AK5.

That's why min-raising is stupid in general, and one of the things this site taught me back when I was a super noob.

So the problem there if Duhamel was min-bet bluffing, Cheong may still well call despite believing he is way behind because of the odds, and then Duhamel's got to bluff again on the flop in order to win the pot. If Duhamel was bluffing, I highly doubt he wants to have to bluff again after the flop, he wants to end it right there.

So, end result, I just don't see Duhamel min-bet bluffing here. The risk of Cheong calling just because of the odds (and that ignores the risk that Cheong sees through the bluff and 6-bets all-in) is too great. If Duhamel was bluffing, the 5-bet would be bigger.

The min-5 bet screamed strength. Cheong didn't pick up on that and it cost him his tournament.

Also, your theory of moving one level up and thinking what would Duhamel bet if he wanted to represent strength falls under the "be one level above your opponent, any more levels than that won't help and actually can hurt"

Precisely.

Look, Cheong is a great player and far better than 99% of this board. But he made a mistake. I've made plenty of them and will continue to do so. It's just that Cheong's mistake happened at the worst possible time.

I personally love the shove. I had been rooting for Cheong to TID so i obv wanted that A to peel off. He seems like a really cool dude and an A++ player.

Duhamel can only call with QQ+/AK IMO.

Even against QQ/KK, Cheong had ~30%, which isn't the worst.That and the fact that Racener is in there means Duhamel will not want to risk his tournament without a monster.

Min 5-bet meant he was gonna have a monster more often than not though.It was probably a combination of tilt and "I cannot lose" attitude.
Really cool guy though

Anyone else think Duhamel came off really douchey in this final table? He came off as such a little baby at times and showed a real lack of respect. That being said he played okay and Cheong of course played really well. Flame away.

Funniest thing I've read all month.

http://www.bluffmagazine.com/wsop-november-9/

he got what he came for, not ninth and not first

I just don't get that. Okay you have to be a semi celebrity for a year or so, but the pay jump from 2nd to 1st is kinda huge. He's most likely gonna become somewhat of a celebrity anyway because everyone is going nuts over how good he was playing + the spazz shove.

Plus, you're only really a celebrity if you want to be one. Yang has faded into oblivion, and even Hachem, who plays a lot of poker, isn't really much of a celebrity. On the flip side, Dennis Phillips didn't even win the whole thing and he's more well known. If Cheong didn't want the spotlight, he can easily decline the Letterman invite, decline the next "Straight from the Pros" ESPN segment, etc.

Yeah, you "have" to be a celebrity for a few months, but after that, you only stay in the spotlight if you want to.

No

Does anyone remember when Cheong had jack 5 and three barreled bluffed Duhamel, but Duhamel called with his rivered king?

"You got it Jon, I got Jack high!"

aye best player i've seen on TV for a long time. For once though Norman Chad really spoke volumes of sense though, he's a v funny man but can also offer good poker insight. He is bang on that Cheong just doesn't really need to do this, ok once he's in the pot he goes with his read, big respect and unlucky duhamel makes a good call.
He's been destroying the table though and I really don't think he needed this hand to win the tournament and didn't need to win every single hand, he could've taken it down in much easier spots. Massive props though 3rd is amazing and i'm gutted he didn't win

J4s, that's exactly what i was thinking when i watched this hand played out. Nice to see I'm not alone.

If Cheung call-folds, he's still in solid 2nd place, and has an excellent chance of winning considering his skill. Probably a better chance than the 30% equity his A7 has against any possible hand Duhamel's holding at that moment.

love cheong

that baby thing is f'ed up.