Top Three Worst Plays in Pro Poker

One way that poker is becoming similar to actual sports, besides its coverage on ESPN and FOX Sports, is the way the poker media, punditry, and fans are elevating certain players and plays to fame, or infamy.

FOX Sports Net's "The Best Damn Sports Show Period" (which used to the worst damn sports show, period, when Tom Arnold was a part of it) has lately been showing themed shows of clips such as "The Top 50 Greatest Plays," "The Top 50 Most Outrageous Moments in Sports," etc., and we are getting to the point where we have enough media around poker tournaments that FOX, who naturally has a spinoff called "The Best Damn Poker Show Period," could have top 50 shows based on poker moments alone.

Just a thought, but does anyone have rights to the British version of the main show? Can I trademark "The Best Damn Sport Show, Full Stop?"

Anyway, below are dissections of what are likely the three most talked-about hands in poker today and, perhaps unsurprisingly, all are notorious by ridiculously bad play on someone's part.

1. BRANDON CANTU TAKES A CHANCE

Cantu is only 27-years-old, but he's already making a legendary name for himself in the poker world for both good and bad. He's one of just a handful of people who have both a World Poker Tour title and a World Series of Poker bracelet, but he's also getting a reputation of something of a douchebag.

For starters, when he won his WPT title, he stiffed the dealers, whom it is customary to tip. He claimed he thought a gratuity for tournament staff was withheld from the prize pool, which is usually the case, but he hasn't looked to make this right now knowing that it wasn't.

Second, and more subtly, he comes off as sort of a immature Corey Feldman-esque character, such as at the 2006 WSOP $1,500 event. If you watch some of those clips, note how he berates people for calling him down light. That'll be important momentarily. Also note the execrable way he sort of passively-aggressively berates the other players; an "oh no, I'm not yelling at you dude, I'm just surprised, that's all" kind of plausible deniability.

Cantu made a deep run in this year's' WSOP main event. With less than 25 players remaining Cantu had an average stack — more chips than Dean Hamrick, at least, but not so much more that he could call an all-in from Hamrick an lose without being crippled. Here's the PokerNews.com write-up:

"Kelly Kim opened for 275,000, Brandon Cantu re-raised to 950,000, and Dean Hamrick moved all in. The crowd let out an "Ooooooooooh!" and got on their feet as the action came back to Kim. Kim let his hand go and it was Cantu's turn to tank. Cantu thought for well over five minutes (emphasis mine) before saying "I call."

Cantu: {10-Spades} {5-Clubs}

Hamrick: {A-Hearts} {A-Clubs}

There was mass disbelief and gasps from the crowd as Cantu rolled over his hand.

The flop was {8-Spades} {7-Clubs} {5-Hearts} and Cantu flopped a pair of fives. The turn was the {8-Diamonds}, a bad card for Cantu as Hamrick made aces up. Cantu paced in back of the table looking resigned to his fate as his entourage called for a five. The river, though, was the {10-Diamonds} and Cantu made two pair, it was no matter — Hamrick's aces and eights were best and he raked in the massive pot.

Cantu was down to $2.4 million after the hand, while Hamrick was up to $5.5 million. Cantu was now the tournament's shortest stack.

Make no mistake, poker newcomers — an important concept in tournament poker are the implied odds from knocking someone out, and if you are getting massive odds to do that, it makes sense to call with any two cards. Let's say you have 100 chips and you're opponent has 1. He puts his lone chip in the table, going all in. You have 72 offsuit. Do you call?

Yes, you should, because although you will likely lose, the small chance of you winning the hand means you knocked a guy out of the tournament, which either moves you up in the money or gets you closer to doing that. If you lose, you now have 99 chips and he has 2.

There's also simple pot odds. If it costs you 100 to enter a pot that's at 900, then you only need to win that pot more than once in 10 times to make the play profitable.

Cantu did not have pot odds and he did not have implied odds to make that call. He had nothing near it, even with his raise. It was a "what the hell, I don't care" move. In the other two notorious poker hands I'm about to dissect, the dunce of the hand was going for a crafty play that had little chance of being correct, but boy would it have looked brilliant if it did.

In Cantu's case, there was no chance of that even happening. If he sucked out and won the hand, he'd be held in even greater contempt for the play than he already is. Short of a family emergency, there's just no reason not to fold that hand.

2. JENNIFER TILLY: I THOUGHT YOU HAD POCKET KINGS

This one occurred on NBC's "Poker After Dark." If you think the amount of celebrities who are into poker means it's an easy game that anyone can master, watch this video, where Jennifer Tilly plays a hand so hilariously terribly that you can see the pros trying to contain their laughter.

If you can't watch the video, it goes down this way: Jennifer Tilly gets dealt JJ and enters a pot with Patrik Antonius, who held 10 8 of hearts. Flop comes 10 J 7 rainbow; Tilly now has top trips and Antonius has middle pair and an inside straight draw. He checks, Tilly bets about 2/3rds of the pot, and Antonius calls.

Turn is a King. Antonius checks, Tilly quickly checks behind.

River is another King, giving Tilly a full house. Antonius checks, and Tilly instantly checks behind and turns over her hand.

Antonius is incredulous. "Full house?! I can't beat that!" and mucks his hand as the table chuckles.

Tilly laughs, too, and offers a defense: "I thought you had pocket kings, I was like..." Then, it seems like she realizes the table is kind of laughing at her and her smile disappears. She reiterates: "I thought you had me pre-flop."

Some players like Daniel Negreanu are excellent at looking at the way a hand unfolded and correctly deducing what their opponent has. Tilly goes one step further, putting Antonius on the last two kings in the deck, essentially calling not just his cards, but the suits.

What's particularly dumb about this declaration is that Antonius did not play his hands like he had kings. He didn't reraise Tilly pre-flop. He didn't re-raise her on the flop with a hypothetical overpair, and checked the turn (hypothetical trips) and river (hypothetical quads).

So she essentially was wagering that Antonius, one of the world's best players, was playing the Trappy McTrapperson rank amateur role, where one just refused to make any bets or raises with a huge hand and hopes their opponent senses weakness and gets froggy. It's not a very profitable play at the high levels of poker, and there's a momentous school of thought that says you should never trap at all.

Still, she at least won the pot, and there were a handful of hands (KK, K10, KJ, K7) that had her beat. That's more that can be said for our final case.

3: JOE HACHEM: YOU GOT 8-5, kid?

The scene was Day 1 of the World Poker Tour season-ending Championship. Again, PokerNews.com:

"The most talked about hand of the day involved an all-in confrontation between Jordan Morgan and Joe Hachem. Morgan (with pocket aces) raised to 700 and was called by three players including Hachem (with 5-3 offsuit) on the button. The flop came A-7-4 and everyone checked. The turn brought a 6, filling Hachem's straight, and Morgan bet out 2,000. It was folded to Hachem who raised to 7,000 and Morgan quickly reraised to 12,000. Hachem put in yet another re-raise to 22,000 and Morgan moved all in for an additional 27,000. Hachem's stack was sitting at roughly 27,000 as well, and he agonized over his decision for quite some time before asking, "You got 8-5, kid?" Eventually, he folded his 5-3 face up, much to the surprise of the table and the crowd that had formed behind him. Morgan tabled his pocket aces and many of the professionals who witnessed it were claiming that Hachem may have made one of the worst folds they had seen in quite some time."

Hachem is a a former WSOP Main Event Champion, and one of the more respected ones of the Internet era at that.

To sum up the hand, after putting a ton of money in the pot, Hachem folded the second best possible hand. Only that 8-5 he called out had him beat.

For Morgan to have that hand, it means he raised from early position with it. Yes, plenty of pros are tricky enough to do that, but it only works if you do it infrequently enough so that your weak holding is disguised and respected by the other players.

That's why even top pros possible range of starting hands are actually fairly predictable: they usually raise strong hands pre-flop and fold weak ones. ESPN would have you believe otherwise, but they really don't get cute much.

Hachem wagered this was one of those times, and that Morgan lucked out and got the nuts.

I'll say this for Hachem: if he was right, just like if Tilly was right, he would have looked like a genius. And that's precisely the kind of glory Hachem was going for. If he wasn't, he wouldn't have folded face up. But he was, and he was wrong, and Morgan showed him and the world that he was wrong, and Hachem deservedly gets the dunce cap for the misbegotten glory shot.