Chris Halverson’s Blog

Last Wednesday my friend Jason (of “Steve’s Home Game” and Las Vegas fame) emailed me asking if I wanted to go to Canterbury on Friday. His wife is seven months pregnant, but is out of town, and he saw this as a prime opportunity to get out to the casino. I agreed, pending approval from The Boss, which was forthcoming, and I was set to go!

He asked me what I planned on playing and I immediately said 3/6. He’s never played that and said he may just play 2/4. I said no problem, even though the play isn’t really any better than at 2/4, but you just potentially need 50% more bankroll. He was still undecided when we met up on Friday night at about 7pm.

The parking lot was packed. In addition to the super crowded poker room, there was live horse racing which draws a pretty good crowd. We go in and look at the board. Oh my…The line for both 2/4 and 3/6 was long. Really. Freaking. Long. I confidently tell him that 3/6 will cycle through quickly and it’s no big deal. He decided to step up and try 3/6 out and we both put our names only on 3/6. Big mistake. Two hours later we’ve watched the 2/4 line cycle through and we’re still about 6 from the top of 3/6. Ug. We could have sat at 2/4 for an hour (we tracked one guy who walked in ahead of us and sat at 2/4) while waiting for our names to be called for 3/6. We’re finally called to separate tables 2 hours into our wait.

I sit down in the 7s and buy in for a rack of blues. Table makeup is your average low limit makeup: half are young (25 or less), a couple older guys, and a couple my age (mid 30s). I sitdown right as the button passed so I post and get nothing. I’m involved in a couple pots while trying to figure out the personalities at the table and come to determine that, surprise, it’s basically a bunch of passive calling stations. I had told myself that I was going to be more aggressive and this table makeup was going to help that out. This, however, cost me about 4BB pretty quickly and I was already thinking that it was going to be a long night.

Shortly after we get sat down, my friend comes over and asks how my table is. I tell him that a raise generally takes the pot and that there had been no pre-flop raises since I sat down (including from me). He said his table is crazy, there hasn’t been a hand that hasn’t had at least one round capped. He was in over his head on this and put in for a table change to my table. Twenty minutes later, he sits down in the 9s.

In that twenty minutes I’ve watched one guy about my age rebuy for another rack, one college kid rebuy for another $40 and the older man directly to my right drop way down. The upside to this is that a large amount of those chips found their way into my stack. I got pocket kings and popped it, caught my third on the flop and rode them home (“3 Kings Halverson” strikes again!). A couple of hands later I took down another nice pot to put me up about 6BB. My pocket aces flopped a set. My 95o big blind special filled up on the turn with an A on the board and I took down a big pot.

The older guy to my right rebought for $20-40 a time about 5 times while I was there. Ironically, he got some good cards, but was so passive that he let people outdraw him. I was more than happy to laugh sadly with him while I scooped the pot, all the while saying, “You had some cards, what could you do?”

It took a while, but the solid middle aged guy in the 2s finally left. He was pretty decent, but saw a lot of flops so it was difficult to figure out what he had. When he got up he was replaced by Mr. WPT, a 20’ish year old guy with cap and mirrored sunglasses. Now I generally wear a cap (always the same one), but it’s more to have something recognizable to other people, ie. so I can hopefully meet some poeple and it’s something to recognize me by. I just don’t get the mirrored sunglasses at 2/4 and 3/6. Come on…Anyway, he sits down and is pretty aggressive. We tangle a few times and he only had me once. I had a pretty good read on him and he tended to draw a lot, but he was always betting, not letting people get free cards. He ended up with a pretty good stack at the end, just very little of my chips. I only did one “fancy” play when I made a full house on the turn (Jacks full of 5s or something, 2 J on the board) and I just checked hoping to do a check-raise. WPT Guy looked at me, reached for his chips, then set them down and I missed a BB. I led off on the next round and he called. He called me down but I was hoping that he had something good (he did, but for some reason got smart then). That’s why I don’t slow play anything, just get the money out there at LLHE.

I think I played pretty well, I wasn’t as aggressive as I told myself I would be which was kind of disappointing. I did, however, play harder than normal and it paid off. I played middle pairs pretty hard if I had position and could lead out the betting. I took down a decent sized pot with A high betting the whole way. I’m not sure what’s more scary, the fact that I was pushing that (I was in LP) or that other people were calling with worse hands. I took another decent one with JTo when the flop cam AJx. I pushed the J hard to end up winning against a J9o. The guy even raised me on the flop and I stuck with him (maybe should have re-raised?). In my not so distant pass I would have automatically folded that, but I stuck with it and it paid off. This guy was pretty decent too, but I just didn’t put him on the A.

During this time, my friend wasn’t faring as well. He was down to his last $30 and bought another $20. He saw a few flops, then would fold to a bet on the flop. He’d lean over (he had since moved to the 8s directly to my left) and say that Big Slick suited didn’t pay off again. I told him he had to raise that in a heartbeat. I think he was a little nervous about being at 3/6 and he doesn’t play anywhere close to as much as I do, so I can understand his passivity. I still don’t play as aggressive as I think I need to yet I was much more aggressive than 90% of the table. It was very interesting to see how aggression can work. My friend and the older guy to my right (before he finally gave up and went home) would get good hands and never raise pre-flop. I think my friend did once, but the older guy would get JJ and not raise. He would then get outdrawn by some crap hand that probably would have dropped pre-flop had he raised. I understand that it’s tough to become aggressive, and like I said, I still don’t think I am as strong as I should be in that regard, but after watching what happened that night (and my friend has no reason to not tell me his true cards and the older guy showed me his almost all the time since I only played premium hands) I now can “see” how aggression can win you a lot of pots. Sometimes I think it just takes “seeing” this personally to really understand it.

Around 12:30AM we decide that we’ll finish out this orbit and head home. I ended the night approximately +18BB (+$106), or 4.375BB/hr. Sweet! I more than doubled up which made me very happy. While not quite hdouble-esque, I was very happy with how it turned out and it will definitely help my bankroll for Trump Chicago next week. I “colored up” my 20’s from the home tourney win (I had brought $200 to play with) and am now ready to go to Chicago.

I’ll say it again: I love to play live. It’s a major pain in the ass here in Minnesota since I have to drive 45 minutes to get there, then have to wait potentially a couple of hours to just get a seat, play, and then drive another 45 minutes to get home, but it is fun. Even when I lost big (comparatively) last time, it was still more fun than online. Yes, I can get about 400x as many hands played online in the same amount of time (well, it seems like it anyway). In fact, if I just played the 90 minutes that I travel to get to the casino I’d still play more hands online than I’d play all night at the casino. It just isn’t as fun though, and this is coming from a very dedicated introvert. I don’t claim to be able to really “read” people, but even at 3/6 live, you can get some information if you just look. I never look at my cards until it’s my turn, I watch everybody else. It’s also so much easier to keep track of people’s betting patterns live than it is online where you are (well, I am) multi-tabling and have a constant cycle of people coming through. Online I pretty much play ABC poker becuase multi-tabling and the constant stream of people basically makes you play that way. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s just not as “fun”. I’ll gladly go to the casino and enjoy the overall “game” more. I don’t go as often as I’d like due to the drive and the wait, but when I do, I enjoy it immensely, even if I lose.

Not much to report. I’ve hit a downturn in my poker play again. Nothing too bad, just a string of down sessions. Other than the home game last Friday, I think it’s been a week since I’ve had a winning session. Granted, some of the down sessions are only 1 or 2BB, so they aren’t devastating or anything, just kind of a confidence knocker. It’s all rigged anyway, right?

The redeeming part of this weekend was that the casino I was whoring finally decided to stay running for more than 5 hands. I also figured out where the multi-hand tables were and how to play $2 a hand instead of $5. Playing 5 $2 hands of blackjack at a time made the $2500 work rate go by quickly and I more than doubled my money (from $100 to $225). Now, I just need my PIN to show up so I can cash out and I’ll be good to go again. That doubling and the bonus I got on the poker side make losing $40 at poker a non-issue.

Here’s hoping your cards are falling better than mine.

Friday night was my home game put on by a guy at work. I’ve worked with him and known him for quite a while and suddenly he decides to put on a poker game. I was to be the resident expert for this game. My qualifications? I have actually played NLHE (or HE in general) before. We did end up inviting one other person who knew what they were doing. She hasn’t played much recently, but once again, she has played before.

Leading up to the tourney I had setup the Tournament Director software and started to get it ready. The best thing I did leading up to this was to print of the hand ranking chart and bring it along. Most of you already know about this site,but if you don’t and you are planning on doing a home game of any type, you should go to Home Poker Tourney. They have all sorts of info there that can be helpful. The host had ordered a set of 600 chips, which would have been good except that we allowed rebuys. The tourney was to be a $20 buyin, NLHE, unlimited rebuys for “a while”, no addon (mostly because I forgot about it).

After people got there, had a copule drinks, and ate (all provided by the host), we sat down to play some poker. The first order of business was to have a tutorial. We had 8 people at the table and exactly 2 of us had played before. As I was explaining the game, the host asks, “When do I tell you how many new cards I want?” Oh boy. We went through two hands explaining the different kinds of things you could do and just “play” betting. Finally, they thought they understood it enough to play. After all, NLHE, the Cadillac of poker, takes just 5 minutes to learn (but a lifetime to master).

We decided that we’d let Julie deal (or alternately me) in order to keep things moving. We just let people sit wherever they wanted. I’m sure most of you would have cringed a number of times due to the number of procedures that were, if not broken, at least bent a bit. Things were pretty loose procedure wise. We needed to keep it that way, people were already a bit nervous about playing with Julie and I and it probably made it worse when I pulled out the laptop and started the tourney software. The software was mostly for my benefit, I wanted to get some experience using it before I get around to doing my own. We were trying to keep this “fun”, at least for a while. Seating went:

Seat 1: Steve A. (host)
Seat 2: Russ
Seat 3: Julie (decent player)
Seat 4: John
Seat 5: Jarrod
Seat 6: Jason N.
Seat 7: Chris
Seat 8: Jason B. (late arrival)
Seat 9: Steve J. (was 8 until Jason B showed up)

Jason B. is my best friend and was invited in order to get some more people. He showed up late due to other committments and we allowed him to buy in late and slid him in next to me so he could play the BB right away. He’s the one who went to Vegas with me in April. He’s played a bit live, but not online, but is super smart and is pretty good considering how little he’s played. He hasn’t, however, played NLHE as far as I know.

We started the tourney with 8 people and I started the timer for 15 minute rounds, each person with T1000. When we got about halfway through the round, there were a couple small stacks already and they were concerned about people busting out too soon. Uh…yeah, that’s the whole point, but in order to keep people interested we decided to forgo the timer for a while so that people could “have fun”.

Two hours later, we’re still at 10/20 blinds. Oy. The upside was that by this time we’d already had 2 rebuys. My buddy Jason shows up and we’ve got a table of 9. Nobody cared that he bought in at that point, there were only a couple big stacks, most people we actually pretty close, so it wasn’t a big advantage yet. During said 2 hours I had won exactly 1 hand. I got the rockets fairly early, played them pretty hard, had a lot of callers. This was before people were afraid of going out, so people were still having “fun”. That held me over pretty nicely for a while.

During most of this time, Steve A., our host, was the chip leader. Every time the action would be on him, he’d stop, stare at the board and his cards, start sweating, and generally call. He would play any two cards, and won enough that you just never knew what he had. He’d flip over 93o, leading out betting with an A on the board and catch miracle cards. It was uncanny what he was getting for a while. This, of course, encouraged the others to stay in with crap.

Around this time, the texture started to change. Firstly, people were starting to get a little bored so we started up the round timer. Now it started to get interesting. I hadn’t had a decent hand in a while, I had been involved in some due to the passivity of the table. I don’t think there was a pre-flop raise during the first couple hours. Since you could get in for T20, you could see a lot of flops. I still had close to T1500, so seeing a few cheap flops wasn’t hurting me.

Now that the blinds were going up I decided it was time to play. Of course, since Tight Chris had been playing for 2 hours, whenever I would bet or God forbid, raise, everybody would fold. When the blinds got to 50/100 I got the rockets again in EP, and raised to T200. Everybody folded. Ug. Shortly after that I had a pleasant visit from the beautiful Hilton Sisters. I slow played them so I could keep people in. The flop brings me a beautiful board of AQx. I ended up sucking in a couple people who held aces. That was the toughest part of the night, figuring out how much I could bet to keep people in the pot. For the early part of the night, my hand decisions were easy because I never knew what people had, so I played extra tight. I probably gave up quite a few pots here and there, but I didn’t want to rebuy and the rest of the people were calling with anything, so it was not worth getting involved in drawing hands, at least not yet.

Finally it got to the point where one guy had rebought twice and busted out again. He then decided to not rebuy and that set the tone for the rest of the people. There would be no more rebuys. Let’s turn up the aggression.

I had a decent sized stack, but Steve A. still had the lead, or close to it, but still didn’t know what he was doing I won a couple of decent pots off of him as did a copule other people. Finally, I put him all in and busted him out. Shortly after that, Jarrod busted out and we were down to six.

Nothing too exciting until we get down to five. My friend Jason had nailed me once when I slowplayed a set and he had an overset. It was then when I looked down and saw A5s and called. Jason calls and we bring one other person. The flop comes a beautiful AA5. A monster hand. This was my second flopped boat of the night, the first one didn’t really pay off. I was determined to make this one pay off. I led out with a small T100 bet. I dug the hole, put the leaves on top and set the trap. Both called. Turn comes another high card, some paint card IIRC. I toss out another T100 and Jason goes over the top all in, we lose the other guy and I, of course, call. He about died when I flipped over my boat and he was gone.

We’re one away from the money and Julie is short stacked. She makes a move and is busted. I’m now in the money with a pretty decent chip lead. I start to throw my weight around a bit and start bluffing more. I knock off Steve J. and I’m heads up with Jason N. who says he’s never played before.

Blinds are up to 400/800 and I’m the huge chip leader. I double him up a couple times while trying to bust him, but I’m still ahead by a ton. I steal a few from him after that by raising huge pre-flop. Finally, he’s down to about T900 in the BB and I raise him all in with Axo. He calls and I get an A on the flop and I win the tourney.

There were a total of 9 buyins and 4 rebuys for a prize pool of $260. My win brings me $130. Sweet! This will come with me to Trump in a couple of weeks.

By now it’s midnight and I’ve got an hour drive ahead of me. Most of the others have left by now, so we say thanks to Steve A and head on out. On the way home I pass the exit that, in a short 10 minutes, would bring me to Canterbury. Oh, the pull is strong. I’ve got a “free” 3/6 buyin sitting in my pocket. Oh man…But no, I’m dead tired (getting up at 5AM to run is wearing me out), so I just head on home.

The fears of all the players came true. Everybody was convinced I’d win, but I wasn’t sure. I figured I would do OK, but the suckouts were incredible. I just stayed out of the way unless I had huge cards and waited until people got sick of rebuying. When I had the big chip lead I was able to be the bully and since everybody was already scared of me they didn’t know what to do. I’m not saying I’m that good, but I knew I was better than the others and could push them around. They knew it too which put them on the defensive from the outset.

All in all it was a fun night. He’s wanting to plan another one already. He’s already ordered a table, it just didn’t get there in time. He’s going to order some more chips because we had some issues due to the rebuys. For a normal ring game he had enough (600), but with the rebuys and no blind progression for so long, we had some problems coloring up and such until people went out. In the future, now that they’ve got their first time out of the way, I’m sure we’ll start the timer right away.

Jarrod won his buyin back by winning a couple ping pong games, so he ended up happy. It was a fun night and hopefully I’ll be invited back They’re longtime friends, so that should help. Plus nobody (other than me) was surprised that I won, so it didn’t really get them upset. This did, however, get me in the mood to get my own home game going. There were a couple people there that said they’d play, especially because my house is at least 30 minutes closer

After getting home late from my home game last night (writeup forthcoming), I woke up at 9:20AM. Wandered out to the kitchen to find my wife making coffee. While waiting for it to brew, I pull out the laptop to start it up so I could do a trip report for last nights game. Suddenly it occurred to me that I could probably still make it into the Party $5+1 multi. Things get started up in time and I register. I search through the users to see if any other bloggers are playing this week and only see Pauly’s brother.

Absolutely nothing impressive to report for a long time. I tread water, winning enough to stay right around T1000. At the break there are 757 of the 1407 left. I’ve got T665 with the average being T1860. Not doing too well.

Shortly after the break I get AKo UTG. I raise it to T200 (blinds are 50/100). The BB calls and the flop comes down JJ4. I bet a weak T100 and am called. Turn brings a K and he goes all in for T290. At this point I only have about T350, plus top two pair, so I of course call. River is an A and he flips up KQ and I basically double up.

I’m getting blinded away and finally at Level 7 I make my move. I’m UTG+1, blinds 200/400 and I have T425. I look down to see KTo and push all in. There are two callers. Flop brings me a K and I’m starting to think about tripling up. The river, however, has different ideas and gives somebody else the flush. I’m out 334th.

I’m getting a bit better at this, still no money, but considering I play one NL game a week, I can’t complain too much. I outlasted Pauly’s brother, so I guess I get this week’s title for the Saturday multi. Of course, it was a coin flip, but I’ll take what I can get

Things were going well last night, working off the last 50 or so hands needed to clear a bonus. I was down a little, rallied back to be up 8BB then lost it all back to a higher full house. My presto lost to his pocket 7s when the flop came 57J. Of course, I did not put him on pocket 7s as I’m sure he didn’t put me on pocket 5s. My check raise when the turn came J made him think though and when he raised I put him on him making his set of Jacks. I had dug the hole and put the leaves on top, just setting the trap, or so I hoped. Unfortunately he didn’t fold and we dutifully capped the turn and the river. Oh well, I played fine the rest of the night, Tight Chris was in the hizouse and wearing out the “Fold” button. Such is the life of the grinder

Tomorrow night is my “work” home game. A guy at work is throwing a NL tourney. This is the guy who doesn’t know about blinds. That single fact encompasses 50% of the field. Because of that, I’m set to give a HE lesson at the start of the tourney. There will be one other person there who knows what they’re doing so it should be “interesting”. I expect to either win (or second) or be the first out. Suckouts will be the norm rather than the exception I’m sure. Either way it will be fun, especially since the host is providing free booze and food. No BYOB! The downside is that he lives an hour away from my house. Yikes! That’s twice as far as the casino and infinitely farther than sitting with my laptop on Party. Oh well, it’s a social event and should be fun. Trip report on Saturday.

I’m needing to get some live play in before the August 7th Midwestern Poker Bloggers get together at Trump in Chicago/Gary. I’m going to be dead from driving around half of Wisconsin on the previous two days (actually, I will have driven all the way through Wisconsin West to East by that point) and sitting out in the sun watching parts of an auto race (CART at RoadAmerica in Elkhart Lake, WI). Anyway, it would be good for me to come out ahead there in order to prep for, or at least pay for, potential future trips. Maybe I can make the big score like hdouble did and be able to fund another trip with that.

Other than that, not much poker wise, just same old grind. School is soooo easy this quarter. Running is going well, I’m sore but feel good. Job search is starting, polishing off the ‘ol resume and everything.