Chris Halverson’s Blog

While watching Late Night Poker tonight (well, it’s recorded from last night) I looked up to see Korosh, the wild Iranian (was in virtually every pot and only lost a couple), get dealt 7d2c in the SB. BB has 7c5s. Flop comes up 7s2dQs and both check. Hmm…gonna slow play the two pair. Turn comes up Ac and Korosh immediately bets and is called. River? Yep, 2s for the boat. He bets, takes a copule drinks of water while being stared down. BB takes forever to make a decision. Cut to ultra closeups of both. BB finally calls! Korosh shows his hand and BB mucks. To add to it, Korosh asks to see his cards and is pissed when they won’t show them. He just won $4200 with the HAMMER and added a little smack on the end! It would have been classic if he would have slapped the cards down, stood up and yelled “HAMMER!”, but Grubby hadn’t put the term into common usage yet.

It’d be great if somebody at the WSOP or WPT did it. If we ever get a Poker Blog entry to the WSOP, I think we have to make it a condition of acceptance that the person must play every HAMMER at least to the flop and if they win, they have to show no matter what. After that, a little Phil Hellmuth-esque smack talk should entail. This should put all the “pros” out there on tilt and make it easier to get into the money.

The HAMMER is unstoppable!

My brother is getting married in August. Since he went to school at Cornell and Indiana University he’s got a lot of friends that live outside of Minnesota. After he announced his engagement, one of the first things that I said was: Bachelor party in Vegas!! He said that probably wouldn’t work, blah, blah, blah. I said, “Hey, if people are going to fly in anyway, what do they care where they go? Let’s all go to Vegas!” He put that off for a couple weeks. Last night I get a call when he asked what I’m doing the 2nd weekend in April. When asked why, he said: 99% sure we’re going to Vegas for the weekend. Oh yeah! This probably won’t be as exciting as the Tiltboys, but it should be interesting (may have to introduce Roshambo and the circle game and hope I can win so I don’t have to pay for anything). I’ve got to start getting a B&M bankroll going so that I can play some poker out there. Not sure if any of the other guys play poker, but I’m definitely going to make some time to do that, even if that means I don’t get any sleep. I’ll be soliciting opinions on where to go once we have some of the other plans laid out.

I’ve come to find out that The Fat Guy makes trips up my way (in the winter nonetheless)! We’re in the process of setting up a “Gambler’s Night Out” featuring thick steak, single malt scotch (or small batch bourbon), and of course, Poker! Full report when it happens (probably some time in February).

I’m going to have to run down and play at the B&M soon. I’ve never played live, but now it looks like I’ve got a couple opportunities coming up. I would like to get my initial “nervousness” out of the way. I still remember when I got onto my first real money game online. I was nervous hitting the “call” button (at a .25/.50 table at UB). Now I have no problem giving my money away (but at least now I’m trying to win instead of playing what I think is right), so it’s just a matter of getting that first time under my belt.

No real poker content today, I spent he last couple of nights watching movies with my wife and taking a little break from the carnage hoping the poker gods will find some other victim to unleash their fury upon (and hoping that Empire would send me a bonus, but not yet…). First off was Tomb Raider 2 which was basically what I expected. It was an easy watch (both mentally and on the eyes). Not bad, but I liked the first better. Last night was Underworld. We got started late on this due to some furniture moving that had to be done between my parent’s and my brother’s house. Anyway…It was pretty good, kind of a mix between the The Matrix and Blade. Some good action thoug, the fight scenes were pretty good. Yes they were Matrix-like, but good nonetheless (IMHO). Like Angelina Joilee, watching Kate Beckinsale spend the whole movie in tight latex is not a bad way to spend a night either. Still have 28 Days Later to watch before Thursday, so poker may get pushed to later tonight.

After an up and down night last night, where I went up for a while before ending the night down again, I spent some time looking at Poker Tracker. What I found is that I hang onto my hand when facing potential flush and straight draws too long. In addition to this, when I have position, I’m not aggressive enough. For example, I have top pair facing a board that rivers the third card to a straight (or flush) and am late position. Guy ahead of me bets, apparently I usually just call. The smart thing would be to fold. If I think he was bluffing (which, let’s face it, he’s probably not) I shouldn’t let him off for “free”, I should make him think about it, but what I really have to remember is to fold, fold, fold.

I spent some time yesterday looking over Jones and Carson again. One thing I know I need to explore more is my post-flop play. Now that I’ve taken a bit of time, I see that post-flop is a huge hole for me right now. Looking back on it, I skimmed the post-flop chapters in both books and concentrated on pref-flop strategies as I was just starting to play seriously when I got them. Now that I’m pretty happy with my pre-flop play I need to study up on what to do after the flop.

Poker Tracker does show me that virtually every time I lost (after voluntarily putting money in) I was doing the right thing up until the river. I base this on the pot odds calculations that it shows when you playback a hand (I’m only going in with quality pocket cards). So unless I’m screwing up how many outs I have (which is possible), I think I’m generally doing the right thing. My biggest problem is the river. I get too married to a hand after it goes that far. By this time in the hand (not always, but many times) I have led out betting or called a couple bets and I think I get thinking too much about “my money”. I see this as a big weakness in my game right now.

What’s really frustrating though is playing back hands and looking at the pot odds calculations and seeing what some of these people are calling though with up until the river. On the turn a majority of these people have no business calling my bets, many times they are huge underdogs yet they call. I know this sounds like a whine and a typical :party: complaint, but it’s really not. I’m not blaming this on my losses, I made the mistake of staying in at the river. It is just unbelievable how often that 5% chance is caught.

Now that I’ve figured out where my biggest weakness is, I’m going to pay close attention to where I’m at on the river. I’m going to read up on post-flop this afternoon (albeit while watching football) and give it a shot tonight after Alias. I’ll keep you updated.

Wow, I must have pissed off the poker gods something fierce. Cowbows getting beat by an A on the river (guy went all the way through with A5o). I’ve won both time I’ve had the rockets, but the last time was for only $3.75 (the first one was pretty good though). I’m almost to the point where I’d consider slicing off part of my finger if it would mean I would have a winning session. I even tried mixing it up tonight: I switched from scotch to gin martinis (an interesting Cucumber Gin that my friend got me for Christmas) to no avail. I’m basically dead money right now.

I’m in a serious funk right now and it’s incredibly frustrating. I understand that bad beats happen, but man, losing more than half your bankroll is quite a shock. Especially when you think you’re doing the same thing you were doing before you started the downslide. I haven’t gone back and analyzed the sessions yet, but except for a few hands where I had some decent pot odds but knew in my gut that I was beat, and of course the traditional :party: bad beats, I’ve been playing the same as before as far as I can tell.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I’m now playing with scared money. I’m still trying to ram and jam, it just hasn’t been paying off lately. I still believe in the strategy, but it’s been a frustrating week. I’ve been paying attention to position and have been able to buy a couple of (smallish) pots with marginal hands (mid pocket pairs with all overcards on the board). Scared money sucks. I’m trying to stay confident, but it’s tough sometimes. I understand that everybody goes through downturns, you hear that most pros have gone bankrupt at some point in their career, but it’s still frustrating. I’m sure I’m not playing totally the same, but I hope I’m playing pretty much the same as I was. That sounds convoluted, but hopefully you’ll understand what I mean.

I’ve mentioned this to a couple of friends at work, but they don’t play enough to go through an extended downturn. One doesn’t play poker yet, but goes to the casino to play blackjack once a month or so and “always” wins. Even if they don’t they don’t think anything about dropping $75-100 for a night of entertainment at the casino. Yet when I say I lost the same thing over a week at poker they look at me like I’m an idiot or something. Wierd.

I’m staying confident. I know I will turn this around and bring it up quickly. I’ve done it before and if I’m playing two tables it should happen more reliably. In theory. I’ve dropped down to one table for the time being until I can bring the roll back up a bit. It’s amazing how much slower it is now.

I’m heading to the Wild hockey game tomorrow, so I’m not sure if I’ll be able to play. My wife is sick and probably won’t go, so it all depends on if I go out afterwards with my friend (of the cucumber gin fame), who has season tickets, after the game. I would hate to miss a Friday night…

May have seen my first (known) episode of collusion tonight. Within 5 minutes of each other two people sat down. One guy was on a tear and jumped up 20BB within a couple orbits. Around this time one of the other guys starts talking about how easy it’d be to collude online. Starts talking about phone, IM, etc. to shift the odds. Within about 2 minutes of this guy starting talking about it both the other guys left. This talkative guy said he’s seen them together in other rooms and won’t play in the same rooms anymore. Now, who knows, but it was very interesting timing. Wait! That’s it! Every table that I’ve hit in the last week has been full of teams that exist to take my money! I knew I couldn’t be screwing up this badly
It appears that Royal may be from my neck of the woods, but email to him has gone unanswered so far. Here’s hoping he reads this I am amazed that he is voluntarily playing 10,000 hands of 50/1 instead of moving up. At least he’s having a better run than I am, not that it would be hard to do that now.

hdouble’s chance to play poker instead of going to work just slipped by him. Damnit! I agree though, Paris Hilton is ugly, but from the neck down? No problems there IMHO.

I seem to have been having trouble signing onto Yahoo IM lately, but I’ll fix that on Friday. I’m on quite a bit (see the sidebar for my info), feel free to say “Hi” (on any of the services). If it’s at night, I’ll tell you what table I’m at (since :party: buddy list sucks and won’t take you to the table directly) so that you too can share in the give away of my money. I’d rather have you guys get it than some yahoo who’s calling raises to the river with A7o or something.

I decided to take a break from my regular desire to win at poker and thought today was a day to be a philanthropist. I decided today was a good day to give away a large percentage of my bankroll to others who probably need it more than I do. *sigh* I’m wondering what I’ve done to piss off the poker gods because they are sure being vengeful. I am now experiencing what I’ve read about, one of those times where no matter what you just cannot win. I got dealt more crap tonight than I could ever imagine. Just amazing. This is the first time I’ve ever seen the words “All In” by my name. Un-freaking-believable.

Earlier today I decided that if I jammed (!) and got my programming homework (it’s weird everytime I say that) done and I was feeling OK (ie. not too tired) I’d give the 1/2 tables a shot tonight. Well I did, and I did. I was hoping this entry would be about my glorious conquering of the next level in my poker ascendency but alas, the poker gods smote me down. What’s interesting to me is that the play at 1/2 didn’t seem all that different than 50/1, the pots were just bigger. I saw people calling (and sometimes raising) with Axo and the ever popular any soooted cards. This is actually encouraging for me as I think I can do well there. I’m having a bad run all around, so I don’t think it was anything in particular to do with the limit. I kinda wussed out and played one 50/1 table and one 1/2 table, which was probably good since I was losing at both. I’ll probably drop back to 50/1 to rebuild, but I’m confident that the 1/2 tables will be a bankroll builder for me.

I’ve read a lot about the down times and how it is very common and how everybody goes through it at times. This is just the first time I’ve had an extended losing streak. Of course, I haven’t been playing all that long. I’m trying hard to keep it in stride and keep in mind that this is normal and to not get freaked out about it. I’m still staying confident in the fact that I can beat this and it’s just a matter of time before it turns around again. I’m just hoping it will be sooner than later.

Playing two tables sure does increase the number of hands you play. Just last Friday I posted that I crossed the 3000 hand mark. At the end of today’s session I crossed the 4000 hand mark. Wow. It took a couple of months to get to 3000 and less than a week to get another 1000. Some of it is that I’m playing more too, but doubling up “helps” that too.

For all you Hammer contestents, The Fat Guy is throwing in a copy of Positively Fifth Street! I keep trying to pick up this book since I got a couple of Barnes and Noble gift certificates for Christmas, but they’ve been sold out around here. I only got it once tonight and it was at my 50/1 table, but I bet anyway. I figured I was losing more by playing decent hands how could it hurt to try it even if it wouldn’t have counted anyway