Card Player Profile: Brandon Cantu

Brandon Cantu recently had stars in his eyes, and he shot them all down to become the last man standing at the 2008 Bay 101 Shooting Star championship that ended barely more than a week ago. Cantu left the tournament $1,040,000, $40,000 of which came from taking out six of the $5,000 Shooting Star bounty players and securing the chip lead on day 1, worth a $10,000 reward.

Cantu’s poker career is now book-ended by two huge wins, his first being when he took down a $1,500 buy-in no-limit hold’em event at the 2006 World Series — the first major tournament he had ever played in. That win was worth $758,000, which was a far cry from his earnings as a skycap making minimum wage just three years earlier. But that isn’t to say that poker was a new experience for Cantu when he went into that WSOP event.

“Poker was pretty much my upbringing; I didn’t really have anything else,” Cantu said. “I didn’t go to school, I didn’t do anything, and I had piddly jobs.”

Card Player caught up with Cantu after his big win to talk about the Shooting Star tournament, how he won it, his poker-playing philosophies, and what he was doing in the poker world before his WSOP breakout win.


Shawn Patrick Green: Congrats on your recent success. What do you think was the key to your success at Bay 101?

Brandon Cantu: The key to my success was that I started taking poker seriously in 2008. In 2007, I don’t think I was playing my best, I was just kind of expecting to win a tournament. So, now, I finally just started playing well. I had four final tables right before this, so I knew that I could do it; I had been really close so many times.

SPG: When you say, “I finally started playing well,” what things did you change?

BC: I just wasn’t taking things seriously. I just changed how I was looking at and coming into tournaments. I was mentally prepared. Before, I think I was goofing off; I was staying out late and I wasn’t coming in prepared for tournaments in 2007. I think I just regrouped and I’ve been taking it seriously this year.

SPG: You won 17 hands in a row at one point, which is pretty amazing — and a bit ridiculous. How did that come about?

BC: It was down to eighthanded, and nobody wants to bubble the TV table. I had so many chips already that I was just raising a lot of pots, and people were just kind of letting me have them. And when I was getting called down, it seemed like I was flopping huge hands right in a row. So, just hitting big hands and aggression, and it seemed like I was winning every hand.

SPG: Since you were being so aggressive, how did you control that aggression so that it didn’t come back to bite you?

BC: I was still controlling the pot size; I wasn’t letting it get out of hand. It just seemed like people were really afraid of me at the final table because I had so many chips.

SPG: The format for the Shooting Star event diverges a lot from most WPT events, mostly because of the $5,000 bounties on certain players and the switch to sixhanded tables once play got down to 36 players. Did you implement any specific strategies as a result of these divergences?

BC: There were a few times that it came into play when I was at a table with some bounties and I made some calls that I normally wouldn’t make, just because I had so many chips, and it seemed like all of the bounties at my table had so few chips, that I was able to take a lot more chances. I was always priced in with the $5,000 bounty on top.

SPG: So, it just improved your overall equity in the hands.

BC: Yeah, it improved my equity, overall. And I was always in a really good situation, throughout the whole tournament; I always had a lot of chips.

SPG: Although you’ve had a ton of small cashes, your two big wins account for about 86 percent of your $2 million in lifetime winnings. Do you think it’s possible to be an overall lifetime winner in tournaments without making first-place finishes in big events?

BC: Yes, I do. Look at Allen Kessler; he always does it. Even though 86 percent of my winnings have been from those two wins, the thing is, with these tournaments, they’re so, so top heavy. Third place was like $300,000, whereas it was $1 million for first. It just seems like, when you get to that point, winning is such a big thing, because of how top-heavy these structures are.

SPG: What are the best strategies specifically for winning a tournament, as opposed to simply doing well in them?

BC: The thing I’ve noticed is that I go with my reads a lot. It seems like with a lot of players, when they’re really iffy and they’re getting into the money with big pay-jumps, they’re laying down big hands to move up the pay scale. I think that’s a really big thing.

SPG: I’ve heard someone say before that it’s a bigger mistake to make a big laydown than to make a big call. What do you think?

BC: Early in tournaments, I think I big laydown is fine. But later in tournaments, if you’re in that spot, you kind of have to go for it. At least, that’s my theory. I have a real hard time with big, big laydowns late in tournaments. I can make the big laydown early, but late in tournaments it seems like you just have to go for it, just because the top two or three places are so heavy.

SPG: When you have a big decision to make in a tournament, what goes through your head? Do you have a mental checklist that you go through to help make your decisions?

BC: It’s funny, because I even noticed it a lot in this tournament. Even though I’m telling myself sometimes in certain hands, “OK … fold, fold, fold” — I just keep saying “fold” to myself in my head — but somehow, I end up making the call. And sometimes it really hurts me, and sometimes it’s a good thing. But it seems like I almost can’t even control it, I just go with whatever my instinct says. Something just comes over me and I have to make the call that my brain doesn’t want to make — I can’t control it.

SPG: What situations are most difficult for you in tournaments? Is it short-stack play, bubble play, or what?

BC: Short-stacked play is actually the toughest for me. I really struggle. I think I try to make too many moves instead of being patient when I get short. I need to really work on that.

SPG: Can you really be patient when you have 10 big blinds or less, though?

BC: Yeah, I can, it’s just a harder problem. I’m even talking when I’m 15 blinds or shorter, I’ve tried to speed up my play and double up really quickly instead of letting a double-up come to me.

SPG: Is it still just all in or fold, though, in that chip-range?

BC: No, not necessarily; it’s not necessarily all in or fold, it just seems like I have to be there for the situation. I don’t really have a general rule of “OK, 10 big blinds and then I just push.” I tend to play differently every time, it seems like.

SPG: Obviously that World Series bracelet was a jumping-off point for you, but how did you even get to that point?

BC: I had been playing a lot of $2-$5 and $5-$10 at that time, and I had just moved to Vegas. So, since moving to Vegas, I had built up a good bankroll to where I could start taking a shot. And it just happened that on the first chance I took, I won a World Series bracelet, which makes everything a lot easier when you win one on your first try.

SPG: (Laughs) For sure. Well, what about even before the $2-$5 and $5-$10? How did you come up the ranks, or did you already have the bankroll to jump right into those and take your chances learning the game at $2-$5?

BC: I had made some really good Real Estate investments when I was younger, like 21, so that had actually given me a pretty good start. And then I was playing in local casinos and a little online, but not that much [online], mainly live play.

SPG: And how did you learn? Was it just through experience, or did you have certain methods or tools that you used?

BC: You know, it’s funny, because it seems like now most people are using poker training sites and all of that. I really just self-taught myself. It doesn’t seem like many people do that, but I pretty much did that all on my own.

SPG: And when you say “on your own,” you mean that you weren’t even talking to other players about hands? It was all self-realization?

BC: Yeah. We used to play a lot of home games back when I first started, and I was always just destroying the home game. It just seemed like I kind of self-taught myself all of the strategies that I had. It just kind of came naturally.

SPG: There were probably a lot of relatively green poker players in that World Series event. What mistakes do you see a lot of beginning or intermediate poker players making in these big buy-in events?

BC: Lack of patience, I think. Early on, it seems like patience is the big thing. People are just taking way too many chances early on, and it seems like these fields get down so quickly early on.

SPG: That makes sense. And it also makes sense from the standpoint that a lot of the people playing in these events might be coming from online poker or online qualifiers, so their patience is already limited because of that upbringing, so to speak.

BC: Yeah, I totally agree. I just think, with online players, they’re so, so, so aggressive. I think patience is a really big thing.

SPG: I assume the bracelet changed a lot of things in your life. What were your plans before that win?

BC: My plans were pretty much to keep playing cash games, to keep playing the stakes I was at. I was just starting out, and I was just going to move up through the ranks. It actually worked out really well.

SPG: So, you had already made the conscious decision to become a poker professional even before that World Series win, then?

BC: Yeah, I haven’t had a job in years, now. That was always my thing, was that I was just going to be a poker player.

SPG: And what are your plans now? What goals do you have?

BC: Before I won my World Series event, that was my only thing; I just wanted to win that. And then, once I’d won that — and even from my Card Player interviews that I did a long time ago, back in ’06 — I said that all I wanted to do was win a World Poker Tour event. Well, I did that, so … I was thinking that I want to win a European Poker Tour event, but that’s going to be really hard, because it’s so far, and it’s so hard to travel to those events. So, I’ve got to sit down and give myself a new goal. I’m not sure yet what my new goal is.

SPG: Well, that seems like a good goal, since winning all three is essentially poker’s Triple Crown. So far, only Gavin Griffin has accomplished that feat. Do you have any plans to hit EPT Monte Carlo in April, or any of next season’s EPT events, to finish up your Triple Crown? Or is nothing on the EPT on your schedule, yet?

BC: Nothing is on my schedule at this moment; I have to look at it a little bit more closely. But I’m pretty much just going to play in the Bellagio events. I’m not going to play in Monte Carlo; I will play in EPT events, just not that one.

SPG: Which players do you most respect in the poker world right now, and why?

BC: I respect everyone. I don’t really have a favorite player or anything like that, because I’ve been in it for so long and I know so many, so I don’t really have one.

SPG: Well, is there anyone who you don’t think is getting as much respect or face-time as he deserves?

BC: Yeah, I think Scott Clements; he has done a lot, now. He has two World Poker Tour titles and two [World Series] bracelets, and it doesn’t seem like he gets that much attention. I’d like to see him get more.

SPG: Which is funny, because he’s our cover-boy for this next issue [Vol. 21/No. 6]. (Laughs)

BC: Oh, really? I didn’t know that.

SPG: (Laughing) Nice plug. See? We’re trying to help the downtrodden man, here. Thanks a lot for taking the time for this interview, Brandon.

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