Brandon Cantu Wins Largest Non-Main Event WSOP Tourney in History

For spectators, it wasn’t the most exhilarating of final tables, but Brandon Cantu probably doesn’t care. A World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet and $757,839 will do that for you. After a ten hour fold fest, Cantu, who entered the final table as the chip leader, emerged as the champion of the $1,500 No-Limit hold’em event, outlasting 2,775 players.

It was a standing room only crowd at the final table, with the bleachers packed and spectators standing three rows deep wherever they could get the slightest glimpse of the action. Unfortunately for the audience, because of the deep chip stacks relative to the blinds, chips weren’t splashing around as much as one might like.

The typical action went fold, fold, fold, raise, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold. Rinse, repeat.

In fact, after Mark Swartz busted out in 8th place, an obviously disappointed ESPN cameramen said to another, “He was the only guy who did anything.”

Before Swartz, one player who was willing to mix it up a bit was well-known pro, Carlos Mortensen. The chip leader for much of the tournament, he entered the third day in the middle of the pack. To his dismay, however, he couldn’t win a race, and he must be hating Queens today.

Two huge hands killed him, both of which had him holding A-Q. Once he couldn’t hit anything against 10-10, once he couldn’t beat J-J. Then, the knockout blow came when he had the pair, 4-4, and his opponent had Q-10. This time, though, a Queen hit the board and Mortensen was the first man eliminated at the final table.

Big hands were few and far between, however, as the tight play dominated the festivities. A couple significant hands do stand out, though. One was the Swartz bust-out hand, which allowed Cantu to take a commanding chip lead. The second was interesting. Ron Stanley was hanging on for dear life and decided to push pre-flop with A-9 of clubs. Two players to his left, Don Zewin, another short stack, called with two black eights. The very next player, Lee Padilla, had both players covered and called with A-J of spades. Thus, Zewin was in the lead, but with only a 40% chance to win pre-flop. Two spades came on the flop, which gave Padilla a score of outs, since he now had the nut flush draw plus two over cards to Zewin’s eights. Stanley, obviously, was in deep trouble. When the Jack fell on the turn, Padilla all but had it locked up, only fearing the two remaining eights. He made his flush on the river for good measure, knocking out to competitors at the same time.

Some people in the crowd wondered why Padilla would call two all-ins with A-J, a strong hand, but not so strong that you’d be wanting to make that sort of move with it. While I don’t know what was going through Padilla’s head, some reasons could be deduced from the situation. Both Stanley and Zewin were very short and were likely to push with any pair or any ace. Knowing that they couldn’t be too picky on their hand selection, Padilla may have actually put one of them on a weak ace, and one on a mid to small pair. And because the table had been so tight, he may have felt Zewin would make the call with a less than dominant hand, assuming nobody else would call. Plus, if you’re going to win a bracelet, you need to take a chance, and this was a good opportunity to do so, since Padilla had both men covered.

After that, Padilla got aggressive, taking advantage of the tightness of the table, frequently forcing others to fold. This style of play finally nailed him, however, when his A-3 was called by Mark Ly’s A-10 and did not improve.

Once Cantu eliminated Drew Rubin (who was entertaining to watch, as whenever his all-ins were called, he walked away from the table and did not look at the community cards), he was heads-up with Ly. It didn’t take long for Cantu to bring it home, crippling Ly with A-K on a A-J-6-7 board, when Ly moved in with J-4. The end was quick, since Ly only had another $10,000 left (not enough for a blind) and Cantu was crowned champion of the first open event of the 2006 WSOP.

Final Table Standings

(Place/Player/Prize Money)

1. Brandon Cantu -- $757,839
2. Phong “Mark” Ly -- $416,816
3. Drew Rubin -- $226,597
4. Lee Padilla -- $176,579
5. Brent Roberts -- $151,570
6. Don Zewin -- $126,940
7. Ron Stanley -- $107,614
8. Mark Swartz -- $88,668
9. Juan Carlos Mortensen -- $71,617