Chris Halverson’s Blog

Eighty freaking degrees.

WTF? We come to California for the purpose of snowboarding for a week and it’s 80 degrees on the mountain. Unbelievable.

Needless to say, the heat has cut into my poker playing time. How does that work? Well, I planned on playing a lot during the day while my son was snowboarding. Since he’s not out as much (since the mountain turns to slush by noon), I haven’t played as much as I had planned. The day was pretty uneventful. Watched a movie (”Bruce Almighty” - pretty good), ate at a local Mexican restaurant, played Crazy 8s with my son (lost 8 games to 3 before he got bored), then watched some TV.

Poker wise, I played some in the morning/early afternoon and was down 2BB total. When my son when to bed (10PM) I poured some Johnnie and played some more. For a couple of tables I couldn’t win a damn thing. I jumped a couple times when tables got short handed (and from Mr. I-Raise-Everything, thankfully he was in front of me). Then on the last table I couldn’t lose, up 33BB on that table.

Overall for the day: +21BB.

Poker is treating me well, too bad I haven’t stepped up to 1/2 yet. *sigh* During the day the 1/2 tables are hard to find other than 6max (at Empire), and since my play time has been limited I haven’t bothered waiting for one. I just hope the poker gods look favorably on me when I get to the B&M later this week with Henry.

The upside? I think I’m playing pretty smartly. I hate to say it, but a little time off helped a bit. I was able to not get bent out of shape about things and was refreshed a bit while playing. I look forward to playing and it’s not just something I expect to do every night. Of course, I’d rather play poker than do homework, but sometimes life gets in the way. I also like Lou Krieger’s article about quickly figuring out pot odds. It may not be totally exact (according to the masses on RPG), but it’s close enough for the girls I know. In fact, it’s great for somebody like me, who, while pretty smart, still has some “issues” with doing math quickly. I did catch myself chasing a couple of times, but a couple times where four flushes on the board while I held the A, so I called to the river (not sure if that’s still the right play though), but I caught myself and adjusted quickly. Even on the tables where I was down I feel I was playing well. I just need to keep this up and not get cocky, then maybe I can raise to the ranks of Fuzz, and then get to the point where I can lose $500 in one night and still keep going ($500 is more than my total bankroll).

Worst beat of the day: Flop two pair, turn pairs the board and makes me a full house. I’m in EP and lead off betting. Called around, river is a rag. I bet out again and it’s called around again. I’m psyched thinking I’ve got this but NOOOOOO…LP has quads! The turn gave him quads and he never once raised. At least I lost to something good, and wasn’t even rivered, but he could have got a couple more bets out of me along the way as I was sure I had him. I guess I’m happy he didn’t, but it still sucks to lose with a full house.

Best hands: Full houses. I got something like 7 of them today. Won with all but the quads one.

Random differences between California (mostly LA) and Minnesota:

• Billboards for TV shows everywhere
• Billboards for strip clubs all over the place, including ones for two words that just don’t seem right together: Spearamint Rhino.
• There must be a city ordinance in Big Bear that every business has a wood carving of a bear out front
• Gas is 60 cents more expensive than in MN
• Drivers are crazy
• There is bumper to bumper traffic on Sunday
• Did I mention the hot, half naked women?

BTW Scott, my son does play paintball. A lot (well, he does when he’s not on an imposed academic suspension by me). In fact, he’s on a sponsored team. The event that we watched was a pro event: $2K to enter, plus travel, lodging, etc. In other words, a kids amatuer team isn’t going. Oh, and yes, he was very interested in checking out the vendor areas where the pinup girls (who do ads for guns and such) were signing posters and such. Both days were overcast and fairly chilly, so there were not a lot of people on the beach.

Other things to like about California: Buying booze in a grocery store on a Sunday.

This week, this blog is renamed: Johnnie Walker Red Poker Blog.

In Minnesota, we can’t even buy liquor on Sunday, much less ever in a grocery store (3.2 beer and wine coolers in grocery stores). Of course, the grocery store seems expensive and selection is limited, but there’s little choice in this small town, plus I don’t want to drag my son for a trip for the express intent of buying booze for myself. Anyway, I pick up a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red at the grocery store (we’re renting a townhouse, so we have a full kitchen and everything) and I’m set for the week.

Today (Monday) I wake up early, like 6AM due to my falling asleep at 8 the night before. I get up and finish my paper. It’s not my best work, but the coding part went above the requirements, and I had a perfect (yes, 100%) score going into the final project, so I whipped out the paper part of the final project. This was augmented by adding six pages of JavaDoc, just to increase the the page count Hopefully it’ll work.

I finish up around lunch time and pull up Empire for the first time of the vacation. Well, I pulled up Planet earlier to see if I was registered for the Sunday tourney and had to ask Felicia how to tell if I was. Talk about an unintuitive interface. I can see how it works and such now, but I had no idea. It’s not showing yet, but I doubt I’m registered since I haven’t funded my account yet (but Neteller finally has my money, four days my ass…). On that note, I won’t be playing this week since I don’t get home until 7′ish that night and I’m sure I’ll be tired. I’ll be back though, don’t worry
Anyway, my Empire session lasted about an hour. All the while my son has “Dumb and Dumberer” on in the background. Here’s a hint, pass on the movie. He was tired due to the altitude (7000 feet) and the heat, so he didn’t board as much as I would have thought. We travel cross country to snowboard only to arrive and have 70 degree (F) temps in the mountains. Figures. Anyway, my Empire session ends up even, which is all I could ask for at the time.

We watch a couple more movies (”Mr. Deeds” - pretty decent, and “Boiler Room” - I liked it), eat, and watch a little TV. Then I get a call on the cell and it’s my man hdouble getting the initial setup for this weekend in place (I can’t wait!!). My son gets tired and heads downstairs to watch TV and I pull up Empire again for a real session.

First couple of tables are pretty much break even for a while. Up 8BB on one, down 6BB on the other. Then things turn around and I get up on both and jump. From there it’s up all around. I end up on four tables (remember Iggy’s advice: table selection, table selection). After about another 90 minutes, the Johnnie, timezone, and altitude kick in and I decide to call it a night (at 10:30PM PST, but to me it’s still 12:30AM). I got AK seven times and won a total 19BB with it. Unreal. I even stole the blinds a couple of time, which is something I don’t normally do.

I end up 23.5BB for the night. Not quite enough to pay for my son’s lift ticket ($36/day), but a damn good positive night which is what I’m looking for overall. I haven’t played for a week or so, but while I got a little frustrated early on (at 50/1), my patience paid off in the end. I wanted to jump to 1/2, but all the tables were full except the 6max ones. I’m not quite ready for that yet, and I didn’t want to wait around on a waiting list. We’ll see what tomorrow brings, but I want to jump up to 1/2.

As an aside, I got my check (yes, a paper check, I messed up and couldn’t fund via Neteller in time) from True last Friday (check #1988, which I thought was interesting) which caused a quick run to the ATM to repay the withdrawal I made to augment the Neteller account (in order to augment Empire/Party or deposit into Planet). Perfect timing.

Another aside, playing via a modem is doable. I only got semi-disconnected once, but playing two tables (while doing nothing else network wise) is very doable. It still sucks for general usage, but it is definitely usable for at least two table poker (at Empire/Party at least).

All in all, a great day, but right now I’m more interested in keeping the B&M streak alive on Friday. After all, I can’t let HD down on our get together. Look out SoCal, I’m on my way and when HD is in the house, you cannot hide!

Let’s start this out by saying that getting up at 3AM to travel sucks big time. Wow. It’s taken me a couple of days to get semi-on track again. Thankfully our flights went as planned, on time and no issues. We roll into LA around 11AM on Saturday and head to get the car. After waiting an hour at the Dollar center we finally get our car. I reserved a mid-size car since I need to lug around a snowboard. What did we get? My son calls it the “most homosexual car we could have got”: It’s a purple PT Cruiser. So we jump in our metrosexual-mobile and make our way down to Huntington Beach for the NPPL Super7 Paintball Tourney. My son loves paintball. So we head down the PCH for what seems like forever until we hit Huntington Beach. I see a Best Western, and since we didn’t have a room for that night, and since it’s across the street from the tourney, we whip in to see if they had a room. Yep. The problem? It was $200/night. Ouch. Well we’re on vacation, right? Whip out the Mastercard and drop our stuff off. We then head out to the beach.

Now, Scott called me out (again) about going to LA and not going to the beach. Well, we went to the beach. Now keep in mind that it was slightly overcast and pretty windy at the beach, but…WOW. Now I remember what’s nice about California: There are hot, half-naked women EVERYWHERE. I’d also like to go on record that I’m all in favor of this “low rise” trend in clothing. Wow.

We watch paintball the rest of that afternoon and then crash at about 8PM PST after being up since 3AM CST. The next day we pay the extortion fee at the hotel and watch more paintball until about noon. We then start heading up to Big Bear. Nothing exciting other than the fact that LA is just freaking huge. I also hate the yahoos who don’t take the turnoffs in the mountains when they are obviously holding up about 10 cars. MOVE OVER DAMNIT!!!

Our townhouse isn’t quite as nice as the one we had last year, but it’ll work. The natural gas oven doesn’t work, and I’m smelling gas, so I’ve got to see about that. I’m still getting used to the time zone changes, mostly revolving around TV schedules. I was able to see the Formula 1 race replay last night, but was so tired I fell asleep halfway through (way to go MS!!). I slept another 11 hours to catch up. I’m feeling pretty good today and am about 90% done with my paper. No poker yet, but that is coming as soon as I get done with my paper.

Poker > Homework

BTW, modems suck. I don’t know how you guys do it.

Going Back to Cali, to Cali, to Cali, stylin’, profilin’…Her bikini small, heels tall - LL Cool J

Tomorrow morning, bright and early at 6AM, I will be on a plane heading to Californ-i-a. I’ll be lugging a six foot long snowboard bag across country to take my son snowboarding. In the interim we’ll be in LA for a total of 3 or 4 days. The rest of the time will be in peaceful Big Bear.

My LA experiences have been interesting. Two years ago on our first time there we (my son and I) landed at 10:30PM on Saturday night. We go get our car and head out looking for a hotel. Next thing you know I’m seeing signs that we’re in Compton. Uh, great. It’s 11:30ish on a Saturday night and I’m driving through Compton. Keep in mind that we are stereotypical “white”. We live in the Midwest, in the most Scandinavian state there is, I’m 6′ tall, blondish, and I’m Norweigian/German (in the 1800’s there was a marriage between Halvor Halverson’s son and Chris Christopher’s daughter, now that’s Norweigian). We have a saying around here called “Minnesota Nice”, basically we are very laid back here. As a side effect of this, we are not the most diverse city in the world. The word “Compton” to a good Midwestern boy like me brings up images from “Colors”, Bloods, Crips, etc. Needless to say I put the hammer down and got through there in a hurry I see there is a casino in Compton now, I think I’ll pass. Mr. Whitey walking out after cashing out cannot be a good scene.

We then go boarding for a week and come back to LA. I get us a hotel near Venice Beach. On Friday we decide to go look at some things and the go to Six Flags. Have you ever seen National Lampoon’s Vacation? I felt like Clark on that day. First we decided we’d go to try to find the “Hollywood” sign. I drove around forever looking for somewhere that had a decent view and such. We ended up in Beverly Hills somehow. By this time I’ve driven all around and cannot find jack. We then decide to go to Six Flags. After driving something like 6 hours (ok, it just seemed like it) we get there only to find out it’s closed! WTF? “Closed for maintenance, come back tomorrow” Hello? Wallyworld anybody? Needless to say, by this time we’re fried and head back to the hotel after accomplishing NOTHING. The next day we sign up for a tour and end up seeing a lot of the city, so that worked out.

Last year we fly in and land at about midnight (there are remarkably few flights from MSP to LAX). I’m dead tired after having our plane delayed for three hours at MSP (thankfully we were in the terminal). We get the car and head out. I wanted to head East to get us on our way to Big Bear (of course, West of LAX is the ocean, so…) We drive for what seems like forever while I look for landmarks that I may remember from the year before. I just “know” there is a row of real hotels at some point along the way, but then again, it was dark before too and I didn’t write down what roads I took exactly, so…We finally decide we need to stop and get some rest and pull into a mom and pop hotel. Oy. The desk clerk was behind like six inches of glass, there were people hanging out on the balconies (the rooms opened into the parking lot) and the cops were showing up as I pulled in. We get a room and it has “cable”, basically 3 non-broadcast channels and about 6 porno channels. That’s good when you have two 14 year olds (he brought a friend along). We took everything out of the car and buttressed the door with it. When we made it back to LA and went to Six Flags it was open. We went on exactly 7 rides in 8 hours. Unbelievable.

This year will be different. We’re heading to Huntington Beach to watch a paintball tourney then to Big Bear. Back to LA to hang with Henry, which involves poker of course I can’t wait.

Checklist:

• Bags packed: Check
• Paper started: Check
• Expense checks CASHED for casino money: Check
• Money moved into Neteller for online (including Planet): Check
• Itinerary, boarding passes, and directions printed out: Check

Looking good. My next entries will be coming from sunny California.

Nothing of note, just a couple updates and a couple of questions. If you play online poker during the day, can you please read on.

• I’ve completed my coding project. I even threw in a couple extra toString()’s to appease Henry. I finally figured out my plug-in architechture. That’s good.
• I still have a 15 page paper to write about the project. That’s bad.
• I haven’t started packing or anything for my California trip. I leave Saturday at 6 AM, so I have to start getting organized.
• Next week I would like to play a lot of poker. I will have a ton of time during the day. What are the games like at the 50/1 and 1/2 levels during the day?
• How bad does it suck to play multiple tables at Party/Empire over a modem? I’ll be relagated to using a modem during my stay in Big Bear. I wasn’t even sure it worked until a couple of days ago when I decided to try it out.
• The 6max games seem to be all the rage. I haven’t done much shorthanded play, but is it worthwhile to try that during the day?
• Anything else I should consider if playing during the day?
• Is anybody else noticing any issues when they come to my page directly (not through a newsreader)? I’ve had one report of it kicking off Acrobat. I tend to think it’s an issue on their end, because I cannot reproduce it and nobody else has mentioned it, but if you have had any issues, can you let me know? Thanks.

Man, I am slipping into vacation mode already. The bad part is I’ve got a work project that would be really good to finish before I go. *sigh*