Park Yu Cheung Cashes a Record 62 Times (so far) in 2017

In October, Hong Kong player Park Yu Cheung ‘Sparrow’ surpassed US pro John Zentner III’s poker record of 56 cashes in a single year. That was the month that the Asia Championship of Poker (ACOP) took place for just over two weeks at the City of Dreams in Macau, during which time Cheung managed a further six cashes to accelerate past the previous record set in 2013, whilst bringing his total cashes so far for 2017 to sixty-two.
The series also helped Cheung push his career earnings past a milestone to their present level of $1,029,442, with the $31,030 he subsequently earned from his impressive run including a 10th, an 8th, and two 5th place finishes. Cheung highest score, however, came at the HK$11,000 Six-Handed Championship event in which he eventually finished in 3rd place for a HK$109,200 ($13,987) payday.
Cheung was a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) before deciding to become a full-time pro seven years ago. As well as finding he could make more money playing poker than from his previous regular 9-5 job, Cheung has also been actively promoting poker in Hong Kong, a Special Administrative Region of China in which like the rest of the country gambling is illegal. He has been doing this through the Hong Kong Poker Players Association (HKPPA), of which he is the chairman, with its 1,000 members regularly meeting to discuss poker strategies, and organize free poker tournaments.
2017 Number of Cashes
1: Park Yu Cheung (Hong Kong) – 62
2: Pete Yen Han Chen (Taiwan) – 54
3: Roland Israelashvili (USA) – 48
4: Jerome Sgorrano (Belgium) – 41
4: Paul Sokoloff (Canada) – 41
4: John Holley (USA) – 41
Over the past couple of years, Park Yu Cheung’s poker results have been gathering momentum since earning an average of around $77,000 per year between 2010 and 2015. In 2016, he then cashed in 48 tournaments for a total of $244,991, while this year he now has a record 62 cashes, worth $317,770, with plenty of time left to add further to his tally by the year’s end.