Payne Barely Survives
Sometimes it's hard not to be results-oriented in poker. Joseph Cheong is probably spending his last few moments of Day 6 thinking about what might have been. He was in the big blind for a recent hand in which Michael Wywrot opened the button for 70,000. The small blind, Jerry Payne, then moved all in from the small blind for 930,000. Cheong looked down at , considered his action, and then called Cheong's re-raise.
The action came back to Wywrot who, like Cheong, was more than 6.0 million chips deep. He made a huge four-bet, instantly getting Cheong to lay down his hand. Wywrot then opened for a battle against Payne's .
"Well, I'm a 2-to-1 dog but I have a chance to triple up," Payne said to a friend on the rail. That chance was looking more remote after Payne missed the flop -- a flop, incidentally, that would have given Cheong top set. Payne then spiked a king on the turn, , and held on with a blank on the river. He tripled up to about 3.0 million, while Cheong and Wywrot each took a hit.