Railbird Roundtable

We're going to take a peek at a hand played online between Brandon Cantu and Adam "Roothlus" Levy. It took place early in the nightly PokerStars $100 rebuy event, and their stacks were very deep. It's a rather entertaining hand, and we'll get to hear from Brandon and Adam themselves.

Here's what happened:

With the blinds at 100-200, everybody folded to Brandon Cantu in the small blind (15,595 behind), who raised to 625. Adam "Roothlus" Levy, with 23,385, called from the big blind. Adam is our "hero" in this hand, and he has the 8 7.

Flop (Pot: 1,250): K K 5. Check, check.

Turn (Pot: 1,250): 2. Brandon bets 800, Roothlus raises to 2,777, Brandon calls.

River (Pot: 6,804): K. After three or four seconds, Brandon bets 4,600. Roothlus calls. Brandon shows the A 2 and wins the hand.

Let's talk through this hand from our hero Adam's point of view, chew on concepts as they manifest themselves, and then get opinions from some excellent poker players.

Preflop

Everything is just fine. Our stacks are super deep, 80 big blinds effective, and we cover Cantu. Position is super important here. If Cantu were on the button rather than in the small blind, I would greatly consider folding. It's so much more difficult to win the pot out of position, especially against an aggressive opponent. Use your position, don't let him use his.

Flop

It is interesting. The first thing we should be asking ourselves is, "Why didn't our aggressive opponent c-bet?" Well, let me reveal some secrets about continuation-betting that the best players are up to these days.

1. We're c-betting nearly every single hand with which we want to play a big pot. That means all of our K-X hands, and maybe even K-K. We expect you to expect us to be c-betting, and big hands should play big pots, so we bet. However, since we're creative, every once in a while, we'll check-raise you here.

2. We're not c-betting anything with showdown value with which we don't want to play a big pot. This includes most pairs, ace highs, and so on. We want to get value by letting you bluff at it. We're out of position, and we don't want to play a big pot with a marginal hand when out of position. We check.

3. Sometimes we're c-betting air and draws, and sometimes we're not. It usually depends on our read of you, our opponent, and the texture of the board. And every once in a while, we'll check-raise you with these hands.

So, let's get back to the action on the flop. Cantu checked. That means that he's got a marginal hand, air, a draw, or, some percentage of the time, the nuts. We have 8 high, a draw, and position.

If we bet, we are bluffing. If we had nothing here, we could consider bluffing. Then, we wouldn't mind being check-raised, because we have nothing and don't have a hand with showdown value. The hand that we have is a strong draw, but it does not have showdown value. We might want to bluff with it at some point. If we bet now, Cantu is folding all of his bad hands. The rest of his hands are either calling or raising. Since we have a strong draw, and Cantu will fold his bad hands on the turn, too, we decide to take the freebie.

Turn

Ding! We made our flush, and Brandon is betting into us. Awesome! We give him a healthy raise and are super stoked right now, because our line looks like BS. He would expect us to bet our flush draws on the flop, in general, so since our hand is concealed, there is no reason to slow-play here. We raise for value.

River

"Why wouldn't the sickest card in the deck come out?" That's what Roothlus said when the third king came on the river. Brandon takes three or four seconds and fires 4,600, about two-thirds of the pot. Now what?

We need to put Cantu on a range of hands. We also shouldn't have talked, because now Cantu knows that we basically have a flush. We've taken away our option of turning our hand into a bluff and raising.

We talked a little about Cantu's range of hands on the flop. By the turn, we learned a little more. He didn't have a better hand than ours on the turn; otherwise, more money would have gone into the pot. He definitely could have a king in this spot, not three-betting because of the obvious flush out there. He also could have as weak as any pair, simply not believing Roothlus. Or, he could have the A. I doubt that he shows up with much else besides that range.

Here's the problem: Cantu's good enough to put us on a flush. He's also good enough to value-bet a very weak pair here. And, he's good enough to bluff us off the flush with the A. Against aggressive opponents, you need to figure out the price you've been laid; in this case, 4,600 to win 11,000 or so, or about 2.5-1. This means that Cantu has to be bluffing with the A more than 29 percent of the time for our call to be profitable.

This hand was pretty ridiculous. Brandon had just come back from sitting out, and even though you could suspect that he came back because of a big hand, he's in the small blind with a pretty big stack. So I assume that he's coming back to a lot of hands. He raises from the small blind and I defend from the big blind with the 8 7. The flop came K K 5. He checked, and I thought for a little bit before deciding what to do. Normally, I would bet this flop and re-evaluate on the turn if called. But because it was Brandon Cantu, I felt like he would check-raise this flop a lot, and because we both were fairly deep, I couldn't see myself going all in over his check-raise. So, I reluctantly checked behind. I'm still not sure if it was the correct play against him, but I don't think either line is bad. This way, if I do get there on the turn, my hand is very disguised, and if he ends up having a king, it will be really hard for him to get away from it.

The turn is the 2, and I make my flush. Brandon bets, and I put in a large raise to make him pay the maximum with the A. After he calls, I'm really confident that I have the best hand, and am ready to fire a pretty big bet on the river if it's a clean one. Then, as you can see from the chat, the river was "the worst card in the deck for me," the K. Within five seconds, Brandon bets a considerable amount, around 75 percent of the pot. At the time, there was a lot going through my head. Did he have the A and couldn't win the pot, so he was trying to win by betting? I'm also thinking, can he really have a 5 or a deuce here? While I want to say no, Brandon plays an unorthodox style, so I couldn't really rule out anything. Also, he has had considerable TV time where he has shown a lot of bluffs. So, I had to factor that in. I was thinking, I want to fold, how can I be good?! But it's Brandon Cantu! I let out a huge sigh, closed my eyes, and clicked call. He flipped over the A 2, and I'm not gonna lie, I was a little heated after that hand. I'm interested in what he has to say about the hand. - Adam "Roothlus" Levy


I have the A 2 and raise; obviously, with an ace at 100-200 blinds, that's standard. Roothlus calls, and the flop is K K 5. I was thinking about this, because I know that Roothlus is a really good player, and sometimes you over-think things and want to become trappy with a player; or, I just didn't think that leading out would win the pot, but I felt like I might have the best hand. It goes check, check, and the turn is the third diamond, pairing my deuce, and I thought it was good. I didn't put him on a flush because I really thought that he'd bet a flush draw. When I bet and he raised, I thought he might have the A, or it just might be with air. I actually thought he had air on this play.

This was a really tough spot; if he had a king, he trapped me, but I really felt like I was good. When the river brought the third king, giving me the full house, I thought he might have the A and might call me really light, and I felt that about 25 percent of the time, he would have a flush and definitely call me. So, I put him on ace high or a flush, or if I was beat the whole way, he would have had it. I bet my full house for value, figuring that because of my reputation, I would get paid off light, and I went to Value Town. - Brandon Cantu

I think it's funny that Roothlus didn't bet the flop because it was Cantu. Because he didn't bet the flop, Cantu didn't put him on a flush on the turn. That allowed Roothlus to set a great trap and get good value, and Cantu to get to the river and make his boat. Realizing where he was, most likely, Cantu bet based on his hand strength and his reputation. In talking to Cantu, I found that he was planning on check-calling the flop, simply because he felt that he was good enough of the time there, and could induce bluffs. I think Roothlus not betting the flush draw in that spot is good, because he is going to get check-raised a certain percentage of the time, and is going to get check-called by ace high. This is more of an entertaining hand than anything else, and a fun example of two sickos getting inside each other's head. Remember that it all comes down to hand reading and playing your opponents if you want to be successful in poker.

Bryan "Devo" Devonshire has been a professional since the fall of 2003, after going jobless in Colorado. An expert wilderness guide with a specialization in white-water rafting, he got his start propping a $2-$5 spread-limit game in Cripple Creek, Colorado, while serving on Search and Rescue. He hit the tournament scene in 2006, taking second in his first-ever World Series of Poker event; to date, he has cashed for more than $800,000 live and more than $380,000 online. A Southern California native and Las Vegas resident, he can be reached at [email protected].