Chris Halverson’s Blog

Poker and School
Have you ever had one of those days (or weeks) where you just feel like you’re missing something? Welcome to my world. You’ll remember that I’m taking classes to get my graduate degree (MS). I’m taking it “at” Capella, an online university. This quarter they switched the School of Technology people over to a new classroom setup. I mistakenly figured things would be like the previous quarters. Opps.

We’re on week 7 (of 12) and I had yet to get any correspondence from the instructor on how I was doing. She had also said she’d send out, via email, some sample papers. In the past, those always came to the email address they had on record. Not anymore. Last night I logged in and paid a little more attention to the site when I noticed an “Email” button. I click on it to find out I have 32 emails. Opps. Well, needless to say I kinda spaced on the final paper for this class. I also missed a couple of other announcements that were pretty important. Nice job. The class overlaps with my trip to Montreal/Indy, so I want to get that paper hammered out befor I go on vacation. Vacation should not be a time to work on homework. I plan on having fun and relaxing for a week, not spending it hunched over a laptop writing some dumb ass paper.
That being said, this will impose some time constraints on my poker playing. That sucks. I need to play a bit more to get myself through this “funk” I’ve been in. They say that losing is a great way to test yourself in poker and I can get “tested” unless I play.

Site Changes

In an effort to curb comment spam, I am closing off comments for articles greater than a week old. I’ve got something that will do this automatically. For those of you running MT, see MTCloseComments for more info. Anyway, comments will be closing after 1 week. Sorry. Email me if you have any new input.

Update: Thanks to Geek and Proud I have installed the SCode plugin. While I don’t like the fact that you have to patch the MT code, I do like the fact that it seems to work. From now on, you’ll have to enter the code that appears on the comment page. It’s easy and shouldn’t hinder you in any way. Thanks Alan!!

I’m also looking at switching to something else other than MT due to the licensing debacle. WordPress is looking like the leader so far. The pMachine Expression Engine sounds very sweet though. They know how to appeal to me, check out this blurb:

ExpressionEngine is written in small, modular, extensible, object oriented libraries. Each class is dynamically instantiated at run-time based on the individual server request, ensuring minimal resource requirements. Our plugin API is truly a marvel of simplicity, yet it lets you extend the system to meet your needs. If you need more control, the module API enables you to add backend functions that are accessible via the control panel. A full suite of SQL management utilities and other tools let you do your work from one app, and our extensive member group system gives you the user control you require.

Wow, that’s a programmer’s wet dream
Anyway, any opinions would be appreciated. Evidently, with WP and about 10 minutes you can have your current MT site up and running under WP (content, not necessarily L&F). Free is good and I know that MT appears to technically be free for me as an individual, but it is still a lockin. ExpressionEngine sounds great, and if I have to pay $150 for something (like MT), I would definitely choose ExpressionEngine over MT. WP, however, seems to be a very viable alternative.

Blogroll

Some new links added (including one from my area, and a woman to boot, that’s, what, two now!, err, three). If yours should be there, let me know via email. Those that ask get added quicker. Also if your site has a RSS feed it’s more likely to be added on its own as I’ll add it when I update my reader. Just trying to help you all out. I did clean some others out though, so if you suddenly start posting again, you may have to let me know.

Also, you must, and I repeat, MUST, go read HDouble’s recent entry in the great poker annals, A Year In The Making. HD shows, once again, what an uber-smart, writer in training, can pump out. Don’t stop there, go to the main page and read everything there. I’m assuming you already do, but if not, you are missing out. Quality is the norm there, not endless semi-drunken drivel like you find here.

WPBT III at Pacific Poker results:

Short Version: Busted out 23rd.

Slightly Longer version: I’m being blinded away. I limp into a couple early pots with marginal hands and fold on the flop. I’m down to T525 when I’m dealt AcKs in MP. Blinds are 50/100 and I raise to T200. Folded around to BG who’s in the BB with T1218. He calls. Flop comes 7sQs2s. I’m feeling OK about this. The spades don’t scare me too much, after all, he was in the BB, the As may not be there. He leads out betting T150. I call. Turn comes 9h. Doesn’t look like it’d help either one of us. He bets T275, enough to put me all in. Hmm…Well, technically I have nothing yet. I’ve got four to the near nut flush, but that’s it. I’d be pretty short stacked if I folded, so I decided to wing it and hope they held up. River is 7h so I now have a pair of sevens, A kicker.

BG turns over QcTh for two pair. He had me on the flop, but I was still a 51% favorite at that time. Oh well.

I wonder if I had raised more if he would have bailed. Maybe, QTo isn’t a great hand, but he had enough chips that he could see the flop relatively cheap. My NL “skills” definitely need sharpening if I intend on actually having these tourneys pay off. I still look at these as “fun” though. My game, if you can call it that, will continue to be the limit grind.

Oh well, it was still fun. Thanks Iggy for setting it up!

Brutal Friday night at the casino. Un-freaking-believably brutal.

I should have figured that my cold run of cards would continue, but I really wanted to go out. I love playing live. I went straight there after work and within 15 minutes was seated at a friendly 3/6 table. It was then that my poker patience was put to its greatest test.

The casino was bustling as it was the opening night of horse racing. BG would have been in high heaven. I was seated in the 3s and the 1s was betting on the horses the whole time. Box this, trifecta that, etc. (it was all Greek to me.) He was on a roll horse wise and a really nice guy to boot. The guy to my right was very, very friendly and a regular there. He offered to chop the couple of times it came around to us and was talking to me the whole time. The table was a fun one to be at, at least our end of it. Unfortunately that was the highlight of the night.

About 30 minutes after I sat down, Mr. I-Normally-Play-Sud-But-The-Tables-Are-Full sat down. He raised pre-flop about 80% of the time without looking at his cards (he was also slow as hell come showdown). I hadn’t had any cards of note and it tightened me up a bit. He was pretty soft and rebought within a half hour for another rack. He was having fun though. Unfortunately I didn’t have much opportunity to play against him and when I did, I didn’t play smart.

That was the theme the whole night for me. I was basically being blinded off as I was not getting any cards. I got QQ three times in the first hour and that was as good as it got all night. Granted, those are very good cards, but when the flop totally misses you and suddenly MP guy wakes up and raises, I had to get out. I won one smallish pot with them.

After about 2 hours, I was dangerously low in chips and I did something I’ve never had to do before. I rebought. I got another rack and tried to get back up. The problem was that I started playing too timidly as I didn’t want to lose any more. One classic hand was when I slowplayed trips on the flop. I let Mr. Stud stay in for free and he got his runner-runner flush.

I did make a couple good calls to end up splitting pots when I was bet into and the board was kind of scary, one time calling a four person cap on the river (I had a good hand obviously, but there were some scary cards, but the pot was huge). I stuck with a decent hand to end up splitting. Of course the net wasn’t much, but at least it wasn’t a total loss. My final loss before I decided I had enough was when I had suited connectors (78s), flopped 822 with one of the twos a spade, called, turn gave me another spade, called (four people still in), and the river gave me my mid-level runner-runner flush. I bet out only to get raised by Mr. Horse Racing. Damn. I called and come to find out he flopped a full house (big blind special that paid off). That type of play seemed to haunt me all night. Set over set, full house beat by full house, higher flush, etc.

Throughout the night I just bled away chips. I tried to play it right, but I ended up playing scared and wouldn’t raise. I know there were times I needed to, but I didn’t want to lose the chips if it didn’t work out. I was playing scared.

I know that every poker player goes through this type of session/run, but this was my worst session ever and it has hit me hard. I’ve had very mixed results over that last week or so and it’s just frustrating. I know, I know, one week is nothing and it’s all one big session, yadda, yadda, yadda. That still doesn’t help much when you lose over half you live bankroll in one session after having your previous biggest “live” loss be 5BB. I also realize that this is nothing compared to what other people have suffered and such, but for me this has been a huge hit mentally. Some of it is cold cards, but a lot of it is bad, or at least not optimal, play. I took Saturday night off, watched the NASCAR race, read some books and just relaxed. I’m going to try to not let it affect me, but it was something that I have never experienced before.

I’ll bounce back, I know I will. Still sucks though

It’s Just One of Those Days when you don’t want to wake up, everything is fucked, everybody sucks - Limp BIzkit

I’ve been busting my ass at work for the past two weeks making all sorts of custom changes to my web portal so we can appease one customer. My boss just came to me and said that they aren’t going to use it afterall. *sigh* Such is life I guess, at least he can’t say I wasn’t doing anything
Pacific continues to treat me well. I played a bit of 1/2 last night but kept getting cold cards, so I decided to drop down to 50/1, after all, if I’m going to be blinded away, I may as well only lose half as much. I thought the play at 1/2 was bad, but this is unreal. Within an hour I was up 30BB. I loosened up a bit since there were so many passive people in the flop. It was definitely worth seeing a lot of cheap flops. Sure, there were some bad beats, but there were enough calling stations that if you had a good hand it generally paid off.

After wiping the tartar sauce from my lips, I sat down to watch my Timberwolves drop an important game. Ug. I was a little pissed and quite tired since they’re playing these on West coast time (not to mention the couple glasses of scotch). So what did I do? Yep, decided that I wasn’t full yet and pulled up Pacific again.

Bad move. I got cocky and sat down at 1/2 again. I played in 50/1 style and proceeded to lose 5BB before I realized what was happening. I decided I wasn’t in the right mindset to play and quickly left before I could inflict any more damage to myself.

I’m planning on going to the casino tomorrow night (Friday), although I may reconsider it. First off, it’s the second day of their “Triple Crown of Poker” tourney (Omaha, Stud and HE, Friday is Stud day) so it may still be busy from that. Secondly, it’s the opening weekend of horse racing at the track. To celebrate, they are having free admission all weekend. Hmm…Now, this could actually help poker-wise as people may actually come down and play poker after the racing is done. I don’t know, I’ve never been there during racing season so I’m not sure of the crossover. Lastly, it’s Friday night and online poker is juicy. I do like playing live better though.

I almost have to go though, my pride is at stake. Remember the 18 year old kids that I saw last time (if not, they are here)? Well, they’ve been talking smack the last couple of weeks to my son. He comes home laughing saying, “Tim says you suck at poker!” and “He wants to play at your table”. Nice. Whatever happened to “respect your elders”? I’d feel bad about taking some high school kid’s money though. Riiiiight. Of course, he’d probably end up winning if for no other reason than he probably plays super loose and would catch all sorts of river cards while I’m putting on a folding session. Either that or he really is good and he’d school me I can, however, play at 3/6 and stay out of their way I’ll probably end up going though. I get excited about going to play live whereas while I love playing online, it’s not “exciting”. Plus, there are plenty of fish at the casino, no worries about that, you just have to worry about the suckouts which are plentiful at 3/6.

There’s been talk among a couple of my friends about starting a home game. Of course, nobody ever does it, so I’m going to take it on. None of these guys are big players or anything, so it would be more of a social event, yet I want to make it “real” in the hopes of it getting more serious as time goes on (a la Ferrari’s or something like that). So to get the ball rolling, I’m starting to do a little research and would like to solicit all 5 of your opinions.

First off, I need chips. I’m thinking of a one table setup, so 8-10 people. I think I’d potentially like to have enough to do a small tourney (same number of people), but that’s not essential at this point, but keep it in mind. I’m envisioning low limit play, with the potential tourney being NL. From what I’ve been able to gather, getting a set of 500 chips should serve me well for the limit part. I would just want to get a majority of them in one color. I also don’t want denominations on them. I’ll also wait to get customized ones until I know this thing can keep going. So, chip related questions are:

• 9g or 11.5g? - People seem to like the 11.5g, but it appears that a lot of casinos actually use the 9g ones. Some people also don’t like the “feel” of the 11.g ones due to the metal slug in the middle. Thoughts?
• Number of chips and color makeup - For this type of setup, people seem to recommend 3 colors. Many sets come with 5 or 6, but 2 of those would tend to go unused (ie. the “black” ones). I’m looking for a decent value and don’t want to lug around chips that never get used. Is 500 enough for one table playing limit HE (assuming no denominations on the chips, so we can make them whatever)?

I’m also going to need a table at some point. BG and his brother (see this one too) kind of made me think that I could do this myself. The issue is I have zero ability to make this, and nothing anybody can say will make me believe otherwise. Trust me. I am not handy at all. Not at all. Thoughts?

Anything else I should be aware of? Any “gotchas” or unexpected things that can pop up? This is aimed at people that I know. I’m sure they all start out that way, but at least at first it will definitely be a handful of people from work and a couple of friends, so it should be a friendly game.

Of course, any of you guys that make it to flyover country will be invited (ha! I know I’ll never have to collect on that ), just give me a heads up.