Earlier this month, World Series of Poker bracelet winner Robert Cheung (pictured), who is known as runninggreathere on PocketFives, took down the PokerStars Sunday Million following a five-way deal. Four of the five participants in the chop banked at least $100,000, including Cheung, who walked away with $127,000.

The top two stacks had 22 million and 20 million when a deal was forged, while Cheung and the other two survivors had around 9 million each. “It was quite lopsided,” he told us. The three short stacks wanted an ICM chop, but the two big stacks campaigned for a chip chop. Cheung explained, “Eventually, the two big stacks gave in and went with ICM. I was a distant third when the deal happened and got $107,000. The average stack size was around 25 big blinds, so anything could have happened. I had my laptop on the left side playing PokerStars and my desktop on the right side writing a business proposal.”

Wait, what? Writing a business proposal during the Sunday Million?

Cheung admitted, “I play poker as a hobby. I do that all the time too. I can’t multi-table because I do my business on one computer and play poker on another computer at the same time. It allows me to play more.”

Cheung owns a company called C&L Multimedia that distributes anime DVDs. “We have been doing this for almost 30 years,” Cheung revealed. “We travel to different conventions and sell them to anime guys.” His company is based in Vancouver and sells to stores in Canada and also works directly with anime studios.

Will he ever leave his business and pursue poker full-time, especially on the heels of a mammoth $127,000 hit in the Sunday Million? “I love poker, but for me to dedicate my whole life and my whole career to poker – I don’t think I can handle it pressure-wise,” he acknowledged. “The variance is high and there’s no guarantee. I would advise all of the young guys to finish their schooling and get a job. You can play poker whenever you want. I would never give up my real job for poker.”

Cheung has a degree in Engineering and a Master’s in Commerce. He also has an Applied Mathematics degree in Gambling Theory. His total number of years spent in school was nearly a dozen and he charged, “I wrote a dissertation on games and want to use my education in the real world.”

Cheung earned a WSOP bracelet in 2007 in a $1,500 No Limit Hold’em tournament and was paid nearly $700,000. He is over $1 million in career WSOP cashes and relived the moment six years ago with us: “In 2007, I wasn’t sure if I knew exactly what I was doing. All I was doing was playing aggressively. If you raised, people folded. So, I learned to be aggressive. I didn’t know anything else besides being aggressive.”

The final table of his WSOP event, according to Cheung, lasted about 90 hands and he knocked out the final three competitors in three successive hands: K-K > Q-Q, 8-8 > A-J, and A-K > 8-7. “It was a dream for me,” he noted. “Everything happened so fast. It was a shock and gave me a lot of confidence. I ended up playing a lot more because of the bracelet. Things have worked out really well for me.”

He plans to travel more in the coming year to live poker tournaments and wrapped up his exclusive interview with PocketFives by saying, “I feel very lucky. I’m blessed. I have a great business partner. Let’s hope everything continues.”

The Sunday Million and other big-time tournaments run regularly on PokerStars. If you don’t already have a PokerStars account, sign up through PocketFives’ link and make a deposit to get one free month of PocketFives MTT Training. You’ll also get a 100% up to $600 sign-up bonus. Click here for PocketFives’ PokerStars link.

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Image courtesy Canada Poker