I am pretty sure I posted this in the wrong spot and it should go in the MTT Strategy section...sorry

Brandon Cantu is absolutely dominating the final table as we speak. There are four people left in the tournament and this hand occurred where I think he made a horrible fold. I'm sure somebody would disagree. These chip stacks are approximate before the hand started. Not exact.

Jennifer Harman 350k

Steve Sung 750k

Noah Jefferson 698k

Brandon Cantu 5.5 M


Hand #114 - Noah Jefferson raises under the gun to 60,000, Brandon Cantu reraises from the button to 200,000, and Jefferson immediately moves all in for about 698,000. Cantu thinks for more than a minute before he flashes A-K and folds. Noah Jefferson takes the pot, and he flashes one card -- an ace.

First off its four handed, second - he has almost 3.5 times everybody elses chips combined, third- he already has 200k in the pot and getting almost 2-1 to call. How do you fold here??? Even if he loses this hand he still has almost a 4-1 chip advantage on Noah Jefferson and twice that on Jennifer and Steve. Maybe Noah is playing tight. I haven't been watching the action too much. Just started. I understand he doesn't want to donk off his chips. But it's still four handed! Noah could easily have A-Q or A-J.. or a pocket pair QQ or lower..in which he has the right odds to call.

I don't get it. Somebody enlighten me. He still has a great chance to win the tournament. But how do you fold?

He won it

Brandon Cantu Wins the Bay 101 Shooting Star

Cantu Leads Wire-To-Wire From Day 1 to Take the Title


Brandon Cantu entered the final table of the Bay 101 Shooting Star with a monster chip lead, and when it was all over, he had collected $40,000 in bounties and bonuses and took home the $1 million first-place prize. Nearly everything went Cantu’s way and despite the extremely low blinds, Cantu was able to dictate a pace of play that had everything wrapped up in just under eight hours. Here’s how the chip counts looked heading in the final table:

Pot odds aside, Big Slick is still a drawing hand that is the underdog to any pocket pair. And if Cantu had any sort of read, he might be thinking he was drawing to a 3-outer if Jefferson had KK for example.

This sounds like a monster laydown that separates the pros from the amateurs. We just have to wait for the show to air and he holecam to tell us if Jefferson had AA or not.

I have no idea whether this is reported accurately, but I can pretty much guarantee that there is not a single regular poster in HSMTT who would even think about folding here, let alone actually fold.

Brandon plays very very weird.

The actual hand history is copy and pasted directly from the worldpokertour.com updates. nothing has been changed. so if it is reportedly wrong. it is on their part and not mine.

Why take a risk at giving his opponents any more chips than necessary? All his opponents chips put together are small compared to his stack. The only place they can chip up from in a major way is from Cantu, so why accomodate them? He's in a dominant position and can stay that way unless he does something stupid, so there's no need to start flipping until he gets heads-up.

edit: Early in the final table he doubled up Jennifer Harman. I think he figured that was a mistake afterward, and decided to cool it and let the others lose rather than him taking it.

Ridiculous fold.

Is it true that he stiffed the staff? A few dealers where talking about it Saturday, but none of them actually dealt in the tournament.

I heard (several sources) that the top two stiffed.

That is what I heard as well. Pretty lame especially considering that he took some decent change on the Chip Leader and Shooting Stars bonuses.

FYP

this has no place here, nor does it EVER need to be discussed in the open. i've always been appalled when anyone discusses this type of personal **** in a public forum. if brandon wanted it to be public knowledge he would have told the press or posted it himself. whatever dealer/floorperson/etc decided to be a dick and go behind someone's back and say "oh he didn't tip," when in fact HE DID TIP when he bought into the tournament, i really want to just punch that person in the face.

sketchy, buying into the tournament does include any tips, none of that money goes to the dealers or floor, minus the prize pool money, it is for the casino's operating costs, which for the owner of Bay101, only helps offsets the loss he takes on this event. That also includes the wages paid to the staff. The dealers are tipped on a hand to hand basis in cash games, they make nothing during the dealing of the tournament except minimum wages. The tipping shoould come from the winners, so if they got stiffed by the top 2, then do you realy think no one would say anything? Im not saying he did or did not tip, cause i don't know. My opinion if he in fact did not, would be that he is in fact, a dick, and I hope he go's on a long dry spell of losing, cause that is what he would deserve. its called karma.

Now my own personal opinion of Brandon, I saw him in the hotel lobby and said "hey GL tommorrow", and he gave me a dirty look like he was too good for me to be talking to him, so yea, he's a dick even if he tipped $100k afterwards.

Complete nonsense.

3% of the prize pool is nomally withheld for dealer and staff gratuity at WPT events (with the exception of the Borgata, where a portion of the ENTRY FEES is set aside for dealer and staff guatuity because the State of New Jersey prohibits guatuity withholding from the prize pool)

EVERYONE who bought into the tournament has already contributed 3% of the buy-in to the pool set aside for dealer and staff guatuities.

Total amount set aside for guatuities at Bay 101: $9600 x 375 players x 3% = $108,000

Given that Brandon's take from Bay 101 was $1,014,500 in cash (including the $10K bonus for Day 1A chip leader and the 6 $5000 bounties, minus the $25,500 withheld for the WPT Championship), Brandon's share of the 3% guatuity pool was $30,435, meaning that Brandon's take would have been $1,044,935 if 3% had not been withheld for guatuities.

Bottom line: Brandon made a mandatory tip of $30,435 to the dealers and staff at Bay 101. That should be more than enough.

The dealers will always complain about not being tipped enough. Frankly, most players are tired of the complaints because 3% have already been withheld at WPT events for gratuity (1.8% is withheld at the WSOP Main Event.)

The dealers should be complaining about not getting enough of their share of the gratuity (vs the share of the tournament director and the floorpersons) to casino management, not to the players.

--

I used to believe that it is good form for a player to leave an extra "1%" as a "protection fee" in order to prevent a player from being smeared in the media or on Internet forums by the dealer "cosa nostra" as a stiff.

Given that the dealers seem to complain about not getting the extra "protection fee" at virtually EVERY event, I now advise players NOT to leave a "protection fee" for the dealer "cosa nostra". I now believe that the dealer "cosa nostra" will not be satisfied even with a 1% or 2% "protection fee" and will smear a player as a stiff anyway even if a player were to leave a "protection fee" for the dealer "cosa nostra".

I have heard enough from the dealer "cosa nostra" and I will NOT stand for it anymore.

--

One of these days, dealers, cards, and chips will be replaced by electronic tables at major televised tournaments so that spectators at home will be able to follow a tournament's progress instantly without the need for human tournament reporters to track the action.

Sometime in the future (when fields at the WSOP Main Event reach 20,000 to 30,000 players), electronic tables will have to be introduced due to cost and because there won't be enough trained dealers around the world to be able to staff the tables necessary to accomodate that many players.

I read that hand and did a double take.

Metagame, brandon was crazy active. Won 17 hands in a row on the Final Table bubble and was pushing around the table at the Final Table. He must have a sick tell otherwise it looks like a ridic fold because a player could just be making a stand.

Nice.
Next time get your facts straight.

$10K buy in.
$400 'withheld'. 4%. Total. Entry fee. Nothing held specifically for tips.
$100, by San Jose ordinance, had to go to charity.
$300 left. Goes to the house.

FYI.....

376 players x $9600 = 3,609,600 into prize pool.

$3,336,000 paid out to places.
$30,000 in 'chipleader' bonuses
$250,000 in 'bounties'

$3,616,000 actually paid out.

calling matt savage....

Just got off the phone with Brandon. AK hand was reported backwards... when he folded he showed the ace, the other guy showed the AK.

Wow, you must really hate dealers? Your ex-wife used to deal untill she took you to the cleaners and didnt have to work anymore or something? While we are putting all the human floormen, dealers and tournament reporters into unemployment and poverty, lets fire all the valet's at the casino's too, they ALWAYS are expecting a tip, pesky college kids.

I only saw him a couple times during breaks, but he did exude a "Don't bother me" vibe. The complete and polar opposite was Jennifer Harman, who was unbelievably nice to everyone around her, even during the final table.

Not true

Steve Sung tipped the dealers and staff

Oliver You are 100% wrong here!

WPT has NOTHING to do with the amount withheld for entry fees or gratuities

$100 of the $400 goes to charity as mandated by the city of San Jose and the $300 goes to offset the costs of running the tournament in a cardroom that has a 40 table cap including tournaments and live games with no slot machines to keep people busy while all the table are occupied with the tournament. The WPT event at Bay 101 probably costs more to the bottom line than any other tournament on the WPT.

Actually it is $20,000 total in chip leader bonuses, $10,000 at the end of day 1a and 1b but the rest of your info is correct

It was the most fun I have ever seen Jennifer have playing poker