Chris Halverson’s Blog

Empire Sucks

In case you haven’t heard, Empire took away the $500 match bonus. I saw a couple other bloggers mention it, then I checked out 2+2 and everybody said they took the bonus away. I couldn’t believe they would actually do that, so I logged into my Empire account and saw that they took away the bonus (it’s now marked as “Elapsed”).

Nice. Thanks Empire. Eff You. I understand that they evidently made a mistake, but what a way to piss off a bunch of players who actually play a lot. The main people who took advantage (and yes, I conceed that we took advantage of it) are the hard core players. I’m pissed, but at least now I can go about a more leisurely route and clear my 1000 hands at Party and not feel rushed. I see they did give me the HOTSEP bonus and released that, so that is $50 which basically brings me back to even. I’m still pissed.

Update: Party is fighting back. Gotta love it! They are offering a reload bonus (legit, on the popup before the login) for 20% up to $100, which means if you take the $500 from Empire and move it to Party you get another $100. Coincidence? I think not Smart move Party.

Action Poker

Editor’s Note: This was written before I found out my bonus had been taken away. I leave it here for information sake and in case anybody has any resources to point to short handed play.

Due to the plethora of bonuses out there, and my relatively short window of opportunity to clear them (the bonus have to be cleared in 30 days and I start class again next week), I did something I have never done before: I played the 1/2 6max tables.

Wow, talk about poker for action junkies.

In order to clear the Empire and Party bonuses I decided I was going to drop back to 1/2 and just hammer them out. I forgot that there are only about 3 full 1/2 tables and about 100 6max. Well, I’ve got 3500 raked hands I need to clear out, so 6 max is probably the best (read quickest) way to do it. I three tabled for a while before I about lost my mind. Wow, talk about quick. The variance here is pretty large, and last night didn’t go too well overall. Overall I was down for the night and I haven’t had a chance to look over my play, but then again, I don’t know what to look for at these short tables.

I’m figuring the general strategy has to change a bit. Virtually any A and potentially any paint and decent kicker is good to see the flop if you can do so for cheap. Maybe? I don’t know. I do know that my percentage of flops see was about double what it normally was, which probably makes sense. I am just not sure of the “correct” strategy here.

I’ll probably stick with this for a bit as I did clear 10% of the bonus in one night that was broken up a couple of times to spend time with my family (including playing with BadBlood even though I didn’t get an invite to Al’s party ). I’m going to try to find some info on playing these action games to see if I can’t make some money here. The play was generally pretty bad, I just couldn’t connect with much.

I think another reason things potentially did not go well was that I moved down a level and I kept thinking, “it’s only $2”. When the stakes are half of what you’re used to, it’s easy to just go along with it and see what happens. I am positive that cost me quite a bit and it’s something I will have to pay attention to in the future. I have to just think “it’s one chip” and separate the chips from the money otherwise I’ll be way too loose.

1997 WSOP

ESPN Classic’s show last night was the 1997 WSOP. This one featured a final table that was held outdoors on Freemont Street. The commentators (Gabe Kaplan again) went on about how hot it was, even in the shade, they even had misters going over the stands to keep people cool. It was also very windy and the players had to make sure to protect their cards just from the wind. I’m not sure what they were thinking about having it outside, but it was interesting.

The final table brought us a legend, Stu Ungar was going for his third title. He basically destroyed everybody. It was pretty incredible. He had the chip lead going into the final table and was never close to losing it. Of course, this was a 1 hour show with a lot of filler, so they didn’t show many hands, but it was scary how well he could read people. Gabe Kaplan did an interview with him and he seemed like a nice guy and was actually pretty funny and outgoing. During the show, they took a break in the tournament and Gabe and guest commentator Phil Hellmuth called him over (you could hear Kaplan yelling “Hey Stuey!”). This is in the middle of the tournament and Ungar had just looked into another guy’s soul and knew he would win the hand. They asked him about his call and he just laughed and talked about his read on the guy. In the middle of the tournament, with the commentator stand about ten feet from the table with the other competitors still hanging around. He was laughing and everything. It’s too bad that he was so self-destructive, just think what he would be doing now with poker as popular as it is now.

Empire

First off, if you play at Empire, you MUST go and jump on an unadvertised bonus. It’s a 100% match up to $500, 5x work rate in 30 days. I just did it and immediately got the confirmation email and it checked out in my bonus account.

The code is MATCHBONUSEP and is apparently available to everybody even though there is no popup. Get it while it’s hot. Man, I’ve got 3500 hands to burn in the next 30 days, plus new Crypto bonuses in a couple of days. Great times for bonus whores.

Phil and the Bathroom Bruhaha

I watched ESPN Classic’s broadcast of the 1996 US Poker Open last night and was excited to see Surinder Sunar and Phil Hellmuth at the same final table. I was figuring this could be good and I was not disappointed. This was still before hole cams and instead of Dick Van Patten we got Gabe Caplan to do the commentary, so it that part was OK at best. The real excitement was Phil (gee, go figure). He’s the chip leader and of course figures he’s going to win. There’s an amateur at the table who takes it upon himself to go after Phil in an interview. They then interview Phil and the guy is standing right off to the side. Phil gets all flustered saying that he’s the best, but he’s going to go after this guy just to prove it to him.

Cut to the table and whenever Phil goes in or makes a big play or virtually anything, he stands up, goes to the rail and his mom comes over to give him support. Classic.

The best Phil moment, however, spanned a commercial break and caused a lot of “controversy”, dubbed the “Bathroom Bruhaha” by ESPN. It was evidently in the middle of the session with 90 minutes before the next break. Phil stands up in between a hand and says he has to go to the bathroom and would it be OK if they took a break. Four of the remaining people say OK, but a crotchety Vegas pro immediately to Phil’s left, who has been pissed because whenever Phil comes into a pot he raises, says No. This sends Phil on tilt and he just keeps going on about it. The next hand is dealt and the NY guy they interviewed told Phil to run as he’d use up all his time when the action got to him. The camera pulls back and shows Phil running out of the casino to the bathroom. The Vegas guy then goes off on the TD. The TD says there’s nothing he can do, each player is allowed his full minute to make a decision. They’re showing this guy going crazy while the NY guy just sits back in his chair with a smirk on his face. Pull back to see Phil running back in, then saunter back to his seat. Play then goes on with Phil raising and taking the pot uncontested. LV guy then goes off on Phil about holding up the game. Phil barbs back saying that LV guy held up the start for 10 minutes while he was outside and didn’t hear the call to start. It was hilarious.

Ultimately Phil gets third after getting careless with his big stack. LV guy goes on to win. The poker was pretty good, the production was a bit lacking due to the lack of hole cams but Gabe Kaplan was better than Dick Van Patten. One funny thing was that they showed Yasmine Bleeth playing (placed 40th or so) and who was her coach? None other than Hollywood Home Game Champ, Vince Van Patten. Mike Sexton was there giving commentary to some other outlet too. Pretty good stuff overall despite the lack of hole cams.

Weekend Poker

I took a short break from my regularly scheduled grind to try some S&Gs. I generally don’t play these as I never play NL and I just don’t feel like I can do well in them. I played probably 10 on Pacific and 3 on Party. I placed in the money in 60% of them and actually won at $10+1 at Party for my first win (won one at Pacific too). Basically my money balance was about even at the end of the “day” while giving me a lot more experience compared to what I had before. I’m happy with that, although it did point out that I have a lot to learn about NL (and tourney) play.

It’s just crazy what some of these people do. I’m sure it’s nothing new to those of you who play these, but it’s unreal the mistakes people make. The best was when we lost three people on the first hand of a Pacific $5+0.50. Incredible. It was a fun diversion but I don’t plan on making it my main play anytime soon.

I really should have been multi-tabling Party though. I’ve got 1000 raked hands to go through to clear that bonus. I did play some at Party on Friday night along with some Interpoker. Nothing too exciting to report, results were mixed. I thought I misplayed some things, and upon further review I see I was marginal in a couple of places. Nothing too bad, so the good news was that I played correctly, or at least I wasn’t making calls/bets when I shouldn’t have. Now as far as “correctly”, that is somewhat subjective of course. Was I Jones correct or Miller correct? I’m still a bit too weak, but there’s worse things to be than weak.

I’ve really been reviewing my play a lot more lately and I’m pretty happy with it. My overall “correctness” (for some definition of that) is much better than it was a couple of months ago. Perhaps moving up to make 2/4 my “main” online game has made me want to evaluate this more as a bad swing there will chew away at your bankroll quickly compared to 1/2. Variance can get you no matter what, but at least I’m not making as many dumb decisions to help that along any more than it needs.

Ultimate Poker Challenge

After missing the first week, I have watched the following three weeks of the Ultimate Poker Challenge. The production value isn’t as high as the WPT or WSOP, but it is interesting seeing some of the big names playing. Eric Seidel has been on twice (winning one) already, Andy Bloch won the third event and Todd Brunson was on this past week. (getting second after having his rockets cracked by AT by a straight on the river). Nick B from 2+2 has been on twice and won one event. Other big names are supposedly on deck too.

The Good: They show pot sizes and the bets as well as the cards. Lot of big names.

The Bad: They have guest commentators to go along with the main guy. They have ranged from Jennifer Harmon to some poker dealer. The poker dealer was pretty bad IMHO. Jennifer Harmon was not a whole lot better, but they don’t really give much analysis, more of an opinion.

They tend to skip over people entirely if they don’t do anything and they seem to splice together some of the shots during the hand. It’s not that bad, but it’s somewhat noticable.

They also put a whole final table in one hour (which edited down as I have done end up being a short 39 minutes or so), so it’s a lot of all ins, but hey, seeing Eric Seidel play is all good.

Other TV

Don’t forget, ESPN Classic is showing the 1997 and 1998 WSOP and the 1996 US Poker open Monday through Wednesday at 11PM CDT.

I don’t usually bother posting these types of things, but since most of you play at Party and since they have few reload bonuses, I figured I’d pass this along. No, this isn’t an affiliate message or anything, some of you probably have already got this but some of us haven’t. Right now they have a bonus that some people are getting via pop ups or emails. Unlike the previous bonuses where if you didn’t get the pop up you did not get the bonus, this time it seems to be working for everybody.

The bonus code is “SEPREL04” (that’s a zero). It’s 15% up to $100. I just dropped $700 in and got the full amount and I never got the popup. The work rate is 10x the bonus in terms of hands, ie. if you max it out it will be 1000 hands in the next 30 days.

Enjoy!

Most people who browse any of the 2+2 forums know about the Bison converter. This is an application that will take hand histories from various sites and converts it into a nice format for displaying on 2+2 or other web sites. The main site is here. This WordPress plugin will take the output from the converter and make it more palatable for general web page usage. Yes, he has an “html” output, but you lose some detail. This plugin expects the output to be in “2+2 Forums” format for correct formatting. There are a couple of modifications to the output. First off, I remove the white color from the results. This is useful in the forums, but not so much here. I also use a four color deck.

Download from here.

To use the plugin, put it in your wp-content/plugins directory, then activate it in your Plugins admin area. That’s it. In order to have it parse anything, you should encolose the converter output in <bison> </bison> tags. An example output follows. Note that you do not have to do any manipulation of Bison’s output, just put it in between the tag and you’re set.

Party Poker 2/4 Hold’em (8 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with K♣, K♦.
1 fold, Hero raises, 2 folds, CO calls, 2 folds, BB calls.

Flop: (6.50 SB) J♥, 6♦, 6♠ (3 players)
BB bets, Hero raises, CO calls, BB calls.

Turn: (6.25 BB) 6♥ (3 players)
BB bets, Hero raises, CO calls, BB calls.

River: (12.25 BB) 4♥ (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets, CO calls, BB calls.

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

Results in white below:
BB has 9c 9h (full house, sixes full of nines).
Hero has Kc Kd (full house, sixes full of kings).
CO has Td Th (full house, sixes full of tens).
Outcome: Hero wins 15.25 BB.

While looking for an example hand, I noticed a “gotcha”. All of the hands that I grabbed came from Party’s new “on your hard drive” version which, while supported by PokerTracker, is not supported by the converter. Just keep that in mind.