Chris Halverson’s Blog

I was playing my fourth or so orbit last night when I’m in the BB and folded to a raise when I suddenly see “Defend those blinds!” pop up in the chat. WTF? I then notice it’s none other than Pauly dropping in to say a quick, “Hi”. What he didn’t know was that I really wasn’t prepared to call a raise with 83o. Of course, he also caught me at the low point of my night (-4BB) and had he stuck around for the next hand he would seen me complete with 9♥2♥ against the BB’s A♠Q♣. I played this aggressively (probably recklessly), but he had shown to be passive, so I thought I could push him off. He called my flop bet (had 2 hearts) , my turn bet (a 2) and my river bet (no help) to turn over his AQ for an A high. A nice little 6BB pot for a pair of 2’s

This particular table was fairly tight and passive. I probably should have switched to another, but I was doing OK so I stuck around. This particular table would easily fold to a raise. I used this to my advantage and loosened up a bit on raisable hands if I was in LP and there were no callers ahead of me. The guy directly to my left was very passive until he was in his BB where he would call my raises if it was a battle of the blinds.

Overall the night was up 6BB in 90 minutes or so (3.79 BB/hr according to Poker Tracker). It would have been much more but I got married to a hand and threw away 7BB. I was dealt KQ when the flop cam QT9. I won’t bore you, but suffice it to say that the Q on the turn made my trip Q’s the worst hand that stayed in through many a raise. The Broadway straight wasn’t even good enough. We got beat by a full house, Queens full of Aces. Ug. Yeah, I should have figured that somebody had something due to the passiveness of the table. The calling of a raise wasn’t too unusual, but the 3 betting was and I should have got out of the way.

Pauly’s comment got me thinking a bit though. How strongly should you defend your blinds? Since moving up to 1/2 I’ve become a bit more lax in defending. I understand that this isn’t necessarily a simple answer, but it’s one I need to start addressing due to the more aggressive raising at 1/2. I have got to the point where I will not complete the SB if unless I have something at least semi-playable. I’m not married to the hand just because I’ve put some money in. I may be a bit too passive on defending my BB against a raise though. I’ll have to look into this some more.

That’s what I love about poker. Just when you think you start to have something figured out, something new pops up. I’m nowhere near having much of anything truely “figured out”, so for me it’s more of an understanding that I should be aware of things. I love that though. It’s a continuing learning experience, or at least can be. I can totally understand the +EV of staying at a lower limit game due to the fact that you can kill it even if you end up becoming a robot, but I’m not there yet and almost every day (at 1/2 anyway) is a learning experience. It’s great!

Tonight started out with a great run. I sit down and notice that I’ve got notes exported on half the table. Wow! This is yet another difference between 50/1 and 1/2, you actually see some of the same people again. I wait for my BB and I get QQ. Nice! I raise it as much as I can and pull down a 13BB pot on my first hand. Things are looking good! I got another couple decent hands and am up 10BB or so within the first 2 orbits.

Then I forgot about the raise button.

I get dealt A♦Q♦, the 7th best hand in all of poker, in UTG+1 and I didn’t raise. What the hell was I thinking? As soon as I hit “Call” I went, “Doh!!!” To top it off, things still looked good going into the hand, but, well, just look at the results:

Party Poker 1/2 Hold’em (10 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with A♦, Q♦. MP2 posts a blind of $1.
UTG folds, Hero calls, UTG+2 folds, MP1 folds, MP2 (poster) checks, MP3 folds, CO calls, Button folds, SB completes, BB checks.

Flop: (5 SB) 6♥, K♦, 6♦ (5 players)
SB bets, BB folds, Hero calls, MP2 folds, CO folds.

Turn: (3.50 BB) 8♦ (2 players)
SB bets, Hero calls.

River: (5.50 BB) J♠ (2 players)
SB bets, Hero raises, SB 3-bets, Hero caps, SB calls.

Final Pot: 13.50 BB
Main Pot: 13.50 BB, between SB and Hero. > Pot won by SB (13.50 BB).

Results below:
SB shows 6c 8s (full house, sixes full of eights).
Hero shows Ad Qd (flush, ace high).
Outcome: SB wins 13.50 BB.

I’m kinda thinkin’ that if I had raised, SB may have folded. Of course, this is Party, so who knows (I wouldn’t complete this SB). I had no notes on this guy, and he had just recently sat down (this was his 2nd hand). I probably didn’t play this totally right in other respects (I probably should have raised the flop and the turn, this time it saved me on the turn, but in the long run it will cost me, it was a bit of FPS), but by not making the pre-flop raise I essentially gave him a free card, or in this case, two, to make his trips.

Lesson of the day then is to raise it up. This was an obvious on and I totally blew it. Of course, after that I got jack for cards for about 45 mins, then got AA and KK back to back. Didn’t win with either of course. I think the action flops, the bots and the pattern matching got me on those though. A bit later I got the exact same AQ, I raised it and got nothing on the flop. The poker gods were angry and decided to show me that I made a mistake. As if I needed reminding.

So, the moral of the story is that one should raise premium hands and don’t go on tilt after realizing that you made a terrible mistake. Basically, my play that had been pretty solid over the last couple days went into the toilet tonight. I won a couple decent hands right away, got cocky, then got pissed after losing with the AQs. If that’s not tilt I don’t know what is. Tomorrow is another day. I’ll be back and I’ll have learned something in the meantime.

hdouble likes to point out that I seem to have a penchant for getting three kings. To add fuel to the fire, check out these two hands. The cool thing? These were back to back.

Party Poker 1/2 Hold’em (10 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with K♠, K♦.
UTG folds, Hero raises, UTG+2 folds, MP1 folds, MP2 folds, MP3 folds, CO folds, Button folds, SB calls, BB 3-bets $2.5 (All-In), Hero caps, SB calls.

Flop: (9.50 SB) 4♣, K♣, 4♠ (3 players, 1 all-in)
SB checks, Hero bets, SB folds.

Turn: (5.25 BB) 6♠ (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: (5.25 BB) 6♦ (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: 5.25 BB
Main Pot: 3.75 BB, between Hero and BB. > Pot won by Hero (3.75 BB).
Pot 2: 1 BB, won by Hero.
Pot 3: 0.50 BB, overbet by Hero.

Results in white below:
BB shows 8c Jh (two pair, sixes and fours).
Hero shows Ks Kd (full house, kings full of sixes).
Outcome: Hero wins 5.25 BB.

Damn, one all-in and the other folded. Not much return. Let’s see what happens on the very next hand (UTG bailed before his blind, so I got it):

Party Poker 1/2 Hold’em (9 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is BB with K♥, K♣.
UTG folds, UTG+1 raises, MP1 folds, MP2 folds, MP3 folds, CO folds, Button folds, SB folds, Hero 3-bets, UTG+1 calls.

Flop: (6.50 SB) 5♦, 3♦, 8♣ (2 players)
Hero bets, UTG+1 raises, Hero 3-bets, UTG+1 caps, Hero calls.

Turn: (7.25 BB) T♦ (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG+1 bets, Hero calls.

River: (9.25 BB) K♠ (2 players)
Hero bets, UTG+1 raises, Hero 3-bets, UTG+1 calls.

Final Pot: 15.25 BB
Main Pot: 15.25 BB, between Hero and UTG+1. > Pot won by Hero (15.25 BB).

Results in white below:
Hero shows Kh Kc (three of a kind, kings).
UTG+1 shows 8d 8s (three of a kind, eights).
Outcome: Hero wins 15.25 BB.

Showed a little weakness with the three to the flush on the board. I didn’t put him on a set though. Guess I gave him a bad beat story.

This output brought to you by my latest MovableType macro, the Bison hand converter converter.

Had a down Saturday, Sunday is looking pretty good. Nothing outstanding, but solid. The cards are a little lukewarm (other than the KK), but my play is pretty good. Saturday I got chasing things a bit and was having some 50/1 play relapses, ie. I forgot about the “raise” button. I’m definitely liking 1/2, but I’m still adjusting a bit.

Does it get any better…

I wake up a bit late to catch the start of the F1 race, but of course Tivo is recording it. I start the coffee brewing and plop down on the couch at 7:30AM to start watching the GP. The first lap was amazing. Button was on rails, amazing how quickly he got so far ahead. M Schumacher’s holding off (blocking) of Montoya was wild. Of course, it was even more strange when Ralf went after Montoya. Crazy, crazy first lap.

It must suck to be a McLaren fan right now. Unreal. Kimi starts at the back, and scores his first point (singular) of the season only because of attrition. It’ll turn around though. I like McLaren, their cars are beautiful, and Kimi is the real deal. Next year will be even better when Montoya gets there.

Ferrari and Michael look unstoppable. In F1 history, whenever somebody has won the first three races (only 4 or 5 times, MS twice now), they won the championship. MS has won the first four which brings him close to Mansell who won the first five in 1992.

After going to my son’s confirmation ceremony, I get back home in time to watch the last 50 or so laps of the NASCAR race. It’s Talledega, a restrictor plate race. Ug. My man Jeff Gordon is near the front, but that means little here. Caution with 10 or so laps left and Gordon is fighting Dale, Jr. for the lead. Five laps left and Brian Vickers spins out leaving Gordon in the lead. It ends up that they don’t restart and Gordon gets the win. While not optimal, a win is a win.

My two favorite drivers win on the same day. Oh yeah.

Oh, I just checked the MotoGP results and Rossi won that. Amazing!

Looks like I’m using up my quota of superlatives today, but it was a great day of racing, at least from my point of view

Hopefully this bodes well for poker tonight…

Friday at Party: Does it get any better?

Sat down at a 1/2 table prepared to apply what I had learned over the last few days. In particular, if you have a decent set of cards pre-flop, raise it up. Another important concept I started to get to grips was don’t be afraid to bet because you are afraid of a raise. The theory being that if you can bet you can call a raise (or even re-raise). That was something that I had some problems with at 50/1. I would be too timidand would want to save a bet if I thought I may be raised. I am now getting to the point where if I can bet, I can definitely call a raise. It’s a mental thing, but I’m getting there.

Let’s just say that I’m amazed how well it works. My table was full of the regular Party gang, but did exhibit some of the 1/2 behavior that I’ve noticed, ie. in general they can fold, at least to a bet on the turn. Of course there was also the “play any A” and “play any A/K s00ted” people. All I can say is “Thank you for stopping by.”

I played 94 hands before the table started breaking (people were busting out faster than they could be replaced). I had a net of +27BB. This was the first time that I have ever seen triple digits next to my in play bankroll and it was quite the rush. Even better was that I think that I loosened up just enough that I was able to leverage some hands that I normally wouldn’t have. Not enough to throw money away, but I saw closer to 30% of the flops instead of the 15-20% that I had normally seen. I tended to get out quickly though, I have quite a few -1SB hands. These would have been marginal hands not worth raising pre-flop but were decent to limp in with.

I’ll have to go back an look over my play in more detail, but I feel good about tonight. The money part is great (and needed after last weekend), but more importantly I feel I was able to incorporate something new into my game which is something that I haven’t done in a long time. Very, very refreshing.

Also, thanks Wil for the pointer today! I feel honored!