Online play on UltimateBet.com
Saturday, August 29, 2009 - Brandon Cantu
Prior to signing my sponsorship deal and joining an elite group of pros on Team UB, I had played some online poker. My play was quite irregular, consumed basically with Sunday tournaments and random cash games here and there. I have become known as a live player rather than an online one. However, since signing on with UltimateBet and post WSOP, I have really begun to dig into online poker and cash games much more.
At first, I was playing at my personal $5-$10 table on UB. I realized I wasn’t mentally prepared for it. I was coming off live play all summer at the WSOP. I had some less than stellar sessions, to say the least. I dug down, I refocused and began with some $2-$4 NL tables and started grinding; 5 tabling. What I found was that I was actually enjoying playing online for 10 hours a day. Not to mention, I was playing great. I was getting cards and I was winning. I moved back up to $5-$10 NL tables and still had success. This was about the time that I found some great heads up games. I have noticed since I started playing a ton on UB, heads up games have been the most profitable for me.
I have had some pretty decent online tournament results as well. In early August, I final tabled a UB $120.00 buy-in. I was just getting warmed up for the month and finished 5th for $2000. Things were progressing nicely. On August 16, I was playing the Sunday $500.00 buy-in with a $100k GTD. One particular hand in this tournament has gained notoriety within the Pocket Fives forums. This hand was actually a huge point of the tournament for me as well; a tournament that I went on to win for $36,000.00 and beat out PSMONEY heads up. The aforementioned “misclick” truly did take place and it gave me the energy I needed to close this one out. Lots of people like to say that I “run like god” and either get extremely lucky or blow up with terrible plays. For as many fortunate situations that have rolled my way, an even greater amount of detrimental rolls have come my way. Below, you will find the PocketFives discussion:
http://www.pocketfives.com/poker-forums/7/pretty-sick-misclick-on-ft-of-100k-by-brandoncantu-4586074
I’m watching the FT and this happens. They were playing each other pretty hard. I have no idea if it really was a misclick, there was a pretty good pause before the call.
Stage #1835606603 Tourney ID 4539058 Holdem Multi Normal Tournament No Limit 4,000 – 2009-08-16 21:13:14 (ET)
Table: 24 (Real Money) Seat #4 is the dealer
Seat 4 – WAMMERMOUTH (106,719 in chips)
Seat 5 – BRANDONCANTU (275,282 in chips)
Seat 6 – BLEWJOB (202,157 in chips)
Seat 7 – POCKETSET444 (104,229 in chips)
Seat 8 – PSMONEY (74,995 in chips)
Seat 9 – XWYWROTX (88,618 in chips)
WAMMERMOUTH – Ante 400
BRANDONCANTU – Ante 400
BLEWJOB – Ante 400
POCKETSET444 – Ante 400
PSMONEY – Ante 400
XWYWROTX – Ante 400
BRANDONCANTU – Posts small blind 2,000
BLEWJOB – Posts big blind 4,000
*** POCKET CARDS ***
POCKETSET444 – Folds
PSMONEY – Folds
XWYWROTX – Folds
WAMMERMOUTH – Folds
BRANDONCANTU – Raises 99,999 to 101,999
BLEWJOB – All-In(Raise) 197,757 to 201,757
BRANDONCANTU – Calls 99,758
*** FLOP *** [10d 8h 10s]
*** TURN *** [10d 8h 10s] [Ac]
*** RIVER *** [10d 8h 10s Ac] [10c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
BRANDONCANTU – Shows [Jd 8d] (Full house, tens full of eights)
BLEWJOB – Shows [Qh Kc] (Three of a kind, tens)
BRANDONCANTU Collects 405,914 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total Pot(405,914)
Board [10d 8h 10s Ac 10c]
Seat 4: WAMMERMOUTH (dealer) Folded on the POCKET CARDS
Seat 5: BRANDONCANTU (small blind) won Total (405,914) HI:(405,914) with Full house, tens full of eights [Jd 8d - B:10s,B:10d,B:10c,B:8h,P:8d]
Seat 6: BLEWJOB (big blind) HI:lost with Three of a kind, tens [Qh Kc - B:10s,B:10d,B:10c,B:Ac,P:Kc] Seat 7: POCKETSET444 Folded on the POCKET CARDS Seat 8: PSMONEY Folded on the POCKET CARDS Seat 9: XWYWROTX Folded on the POCKET CARDS
The chat:
BRANDONCANTU: misclick
BLEWJOB: fml
<< Result for Hand 1835606603 >>
XWYWROTX: lol
BRANDONCANTU wins (405,914) with (Full house, tens full of eights).
XWYWROTX: misclick ftw
Player BLEWJOB has finished the tournament in # 6 place.
PSMONEY: jesus
BRANDONCANTU: OMG
WAMMERMOUTH: wow
BRANDONCANTU: whata misclick
XWYWROTX: haha
XWYWROTX: so sick
WAMMERMOUTH: obvious misclick but damn it worked well
<< Result for Hand 1835608931 >>
Two days after the $100k GTD win, I was playing a VIP 45 Seat tournament. I had a bounty on my head and I was about to make the VIP players earn it. I got off to a slow start as I wasn’t really picking up any hands. I was also playing some other cash games at the time. I then made some plays, doubled up and was moving. I got real focused real fast. I ended up finishing 4th which netted me $400.00. The final table had some really good players. I watched the remainder of the tournament and NIGHTMAREFIS ended up outlasting DONKINITUP, who each took home $1,200.00 and $800.00 respectfully. I must say, these VIP 45 Seat tournaments are a good time.
Mentally, the last few months being a member of Team UB, has improved my game. I feel so comfortable logging into the UltimateBet client, it continues to feel like a home game for me. I am so relaxed and focused. I have easily played the best online poker of my life since joining UltimateBet. I am going to keep working on my online game to improve even more but I cannot lose focus of my live playing goals for the remainder of 2009.
Good luck everyone with all the upcoming travels and tournaments. See you on the road. Look for me playing on UltimateBet.com at both my $5-$10 NL 6-handed and $5-$10 NLHU tables.
Brandon Cantu
Tags: Brandon Cantu, cash games, Online Poker, Team UB, ub, Ultimate Bet, VIP, WSOP
