Chris Halverson’s Blog

Jason’s fortune from LeeAnn Chin after playing at Canterbury: A close friend will help you find a hidden talent.

Being a close friend, here’s my help: Always fold two pair at 2/4, they suck.

It started innocently enough. Last week I posted about my trip to Canterbury and how I just found that I wasn’t having “fun” playing live anymore. I complained that it just seemed like a grind and how I missed out on the fun of the WPBT tables and the 2+2 table at Canterbury. My good friend Jason and I have lunch every Thursday (and have for like 10 years, literally). We were at lunch last Thursday (well, there’s a story behind that including a broken windshield and slow days at work, but it’s not really important) and he said he read it and brought up the prospect of going back to Canterbury during this week. He had the week off and was willing to go. We both got clearance from The Bosses and we planned on going down to the ‘Bury on Tuesday.

I pretty much blew off work during the morning and we met up around 1pm. Some logistical issues were worked out and I drove us both to scenic Shakopee and into McDonald’s for a bite before we hit the card room. One Big and Tasty later we roll into the room and we immediately realize we made a mistake. There are about 3,000 people waiting for a seat. In retrospect, we should have gone to McDonald’s after signing up for a seat. We had decided that this was going to be for fun, so we got on the 2/4 and 3/6 lists ultimately hoping for 2/4.

The ubiquitous Ferrari cap pulls through again as one of the 2+2’ers from last week, let’s call him Brian (since I have about a 70% chance of that being right), comes up and we chat for a bit. He’s sitting in a 6/12 game and doing well from the looks of it.

Two hours later Jason gets called for a 2/4 and I’m next on the list. Ironically a seat opened up at his same table (table 32, back by casino games) right away and I got called to the 1s at his table. Nice! Now we don’t have to worry about a table change. During the wait I had grabbed a beer and still had it with me when I sat down. I was the only one who had a drink at the table and I was hoping it would work to my advantage. I sat down and started chatting with the dealer right away which is something I never do.

The chip runner goes to get my chips and she returns just as I’m getting my first hand. The cards are down and I’m left trying to move my chips closer to the rail. While attempting to my move stacks in, I grab my cards and then start to move the chips in. Why I grabbed my cards I’ll never know, but while doing so I flash the cards to table. When I say flash, I mean I basically had them face up for a second. I realized this and tried to bring them back but when I looked up to see if anybody saw it I see Jason in the 5s staring at me with this look that basically said, “What a dumbass”. After stumbling to get the chips stacked I look at my cards and see 92o. Just the kind of hand you like to see when you are posting in the cutoff.

I get to see the flop for free and see 92x rainbow. W00T! I’ve hit a miracle flop, but remember that I basically showed the table my hand pre-flop. I look up at Jason and he just kinda lets out a smirk. It’s checked around and I throw a bet out. I pretty sure I hear a guy from Table 17 yell fold because he saw my cards. Amazingly everybody calls, including the two old guys in the 3s and 4s. Huh? OK. Well, suffice it to say that I pull down a 10BB pot on my first hand and things are rolling.

Not much else happens for a while, I order another beer and shortly thereafter the old guys in the 3s and 4s get up to leave. I move over to the 4s to be next to Jason. I tell the table that I’m going to raise his blind every time. I’m doing what I can to loosen the table up a bit because it had started to tighten up. Amazingly I get cowboys (see below) and end up taking down a pot right away. I make a couple of comments to the dealer asking to change seats every hand. She laughed but the rest of the table thought I was dumb. That’s fine.

During this time, the average age of the table dropped to 20.5. Jason and I are both 34 and there was one older guy left who was in his 60s. The rest of the table probably couldn’t even drink. This threw a wrench into one of my plans of offering to buy people drinks. Oh well, that save me money I guess.

The old guy was directly to Jason’s left. He bought in for 2 racks and played virtually every hand. He would take forever to make some calls but you could never put him on anything. He’d call down to the river with 85o and then check down with the best hand. If he was in a hand you were never sure where you stood because he’d call raises with crap too, very strange.

An example was when I had KT in one of the blinds. The flop comes down AQJ rainbow. I flop the nut straight and threw a couple chips out and he’s the only one who calls. The turn is the 14 of shamrocks and I check. He carefully sets out a bet and I pull the dreaded check raise. He goes into the tank and takes what seems like 5 minutes to make the call. As the dealer is throwing the brick that they call the river I was already throwing in my chips. He thinks and thinks and finally folds. I was nice and showed the table my flopped straight. Jason says the guy had ten high for a pair of tens on the flop, but with two overcards including an ace out there.

All the while I’m having a good time. Jason and I are talking and trying to get the rest of the table to loosen up a bit, but they were probably high school or college kids who didn’t have much money. It was one of the tightest 2/4 tables I have ever seen.

I did take pleasure in owning the kid in the 7s. I first put him a bit on tilt when I had my KK. I was in the cutoff, just moving from the other seat, and I saw the black cowboys. I popped it and a couple of us came along. The flop comes down all hearts, queen high. Not good. It’s checked around to me and I throw one out. Everybody except the 7s fold. The turn comes a brick and I’m a bit nervous. I figure he may have been waiting for a raise until the bets get bigger. He checks and I check behind. Maybe he bet and I called, either way I didn’t put him on the flush. The river is dealt and I’m looking at him and he’s looking at me to see if I react. This was almost WPTish, but I don’t let on that it didn’t help as it comes down a brick again and he throws out a bet. I call and he flips over ace high, no flush and MHIG. He couldn’t believe I called him down with a 3 flush on the board. I, of course, couldn’t believe that he was betting into it.

Then a little while later came the bitch slap.

I’m in the big blind and see A6o. Four or so of us see a flop that comes down 6QA rainbow. Ug. Surprisingly it’s checked around and I get to see the turn for free. It comes down a beautiful 6. I decide to not give a free card and lead out. The 7s raises and I raise him back. He goes in the tank for a bit but calls, everybody else drops and we’re heads up to the river. The river brings a super scary Q for a double paired board. I decide to be brave and bet, he raises and I go into the tank. I have got to call. I hem and haw and throw in 4 more blues. Since I called him he flips first (after I point it out because I was pissed, I wasn’t slowrolling, I figured he had a queen and made the bigger boat) and he has an Ax for aces and queens. I show my A6 and I drag down the pot.

He laughs and just looks at me and says, “If I get heads up with you I’m going to fold, I can’t bluff you out of anything.” Uh, ok. Of course, I had him all the way with my trip sixes, but that didn’t seem to bother him. Of course, this is also 2/4. I have a good paying job, I can, if I have a semi-decent hand, call another bet on the river, it’s really not going to bother me. Not sure what he’s thinking about bluffing at 2/4, but such is life.

I think most of the kids at the table were either in college or maybe seniors in high school. What money they had to spend was on the table. I, of course, still had another Franklin with me, although I never dropped below my original buy in. This money was also totally disposable, I wasn’t going to get too worked up over one more $4 bet on the river. If I had part of it, I was probably going to call it down.

At about 6pm, right after the “Aces Never Lose” promotion ends, a young woman (early 20s) sits down in the seat next to me. She’s cute and she’s pretty talkative. She definitely knows what she’s doing, I don’t know if she was “good” or not, but she held her own. We got chatting a bit. She was probably happy that she got sat next to me, a 34 year old married guy, instead of on the other side of the table that was dominated by 20-something (maybe) guys.

She, of course, got on my bad side right away though About two orbits after she sat down, we were in the blinds and it was folded around. I was already pulling back my bets and I looked to her and said, “Chop?” She immediately completed and said, “I never chop.” Well, ok! I put on a show for the table and that became the running joke for a while. What took over was when she raised my big blind once. Damnit. We had a good time and it helped loosen up the table a bit, which was good because about once an orbit there’d be a blind chop. At 2/4. It was unreal. We now had me, Jason and this woman talking things up and having a good time and even the tightwad young kids were smiling now and then.

My crowning achievement of the night was showing Jason how to play one of poker’s most difficult moves: The River Suckout™. I’ve been practicing this a lot lately, mostly by watching online low limit people pull it on me. Repeatedly. Now, however, the time is mine.

We’re in the blinds and I see pocket tens. There are a couple of callers and I just complete instead of raising. This is important, you can’t correctly pull off the Suckout™ if you drive people out of the pot or show that you may actually have a hand. The flop comes Q9x. I’m not happy about the overcard but I throw out a bet anyway. Jason smooth calls and we lose everybody else. The turn is some card that doesn’t help either of use. I throw out a feeler bet and Jason immediately raises. I wasn’t happy about that and make a big show about the raise. This was, of course, just the setup. I was luring Jason into thinking that he was ahead when in reality I knew I was going to win. After all, I had called upon the power of the Suckout™ to win this hand. To make the point even more, I say, “Fine, I’m calling to keep you honest”.

The river is a ten, just as I knew it would be.

Because he’s a friend, I decide not to pull the check raise and just throw out a bet. See, I didn’t let him off for free, plus I had to get him back for raising me on the turn. He raises and I gladly call while saying, “You’re not going to like this”. He quickly flips over Q9 for a flopped two pair and my set of tens is good, just as I knew they would be.

The table loved this, especially because they knew we were together. We didn’t slowplay or anything and we hadn’t all night. We were having fun, but not afraid to raise each other, so don’t get all worked up that we softplayed. There were plenty of ways I could have been beaten on that hand, so reraising probably wasn’t prudent.

Jason got about 63 combos of two pair, hardly any of which paid off. It was weird. He’d get them on the flop and bet, but the turn would bring a flush draw or some such thing and he’d either have to drop or he ended up getting beat by a higher 2 pair.

Jason’s wife’s cousin also stopped by. He was a total poker newbie who had just graduated from college. Ironically, he also got seated at our table right away. He seemed to have an ok time but he played way, way too many hands and quickly dropped the $70 he had allocated to play. He then went to the Indian casino down the road and won back $40 of it in blackjack.

We started to get hungry, and Jason had to get back and I theoretically have to work in the morning, so we called it a night at about 7:30. We played for a bit less than 4 hours. I ended the night +$22 (5.5BB). Once you factor in the oppressive rake at 2/4, tips, drinks, etc. I feel pretty happy with the night.

More importantly, I had fun playing poker. I needed a “blow off some steam” poker night. Many of you do this on the blogger NL table. I haven’t done this in forever, most likely since my anniversary. I really, really needed a night like this to recharge my batteries a bit. Thanks Jason for bringing it up, it was a great time.

Monday night was shaping up to be a night where I would be able to play a decent amount of poker. Of course, things change and I didn’t really play that much.

It started out innocently enough, I had about 45 minutes worth of table time to clear at UKBetting, so I sat down with my leftover lunch and pull it up. Of course, this is about the time Mrs. H decided to come up for dinner too (we were winging it last night, my son was gone and we were just on our own). OK, put off poker until she goes back downstairs. Thirty minutes later she goes down to work on her Second Life stuff and I pull up the poker. I decide to throw caution to the wind and pull up two tables. Whoa tiger! Two crypto tables? At one time? That’s right, I wanted to use up the time quickly so I could get on to greener pastures. Sometimes the Crypto software lets me have 2 tables with no problems, other times, it’s unusable and times me out all while the “Poker.exe” is chewing 99% of my CPU.

This was one of those nights.

How did I realize that? Well, beside the fact that my computer was totally unresponsive, the worst of it came when I got dealt JJ in early position and popped it. It took about 20 seconds for my raise to show up. Not good. I get one caller and see the flop take about 30 seconds to show, literally one card at a time. I was excited because it was JAx and figured the ace had to help the guy. I sat there waiting for my buttons to show up when suddenly the pot is being pushed to the other guy and I’m sitting out. Frack!

I logged off and actually had enough time to get the final £5 bonus and got the hell out of dodge, still frustrated as I had to post yet another in the long line of small (2-3BB) losses at a Crypto site.

I then decide to pull up a chair to Gaming Club and Paradise. I decided on two different sites instead of maximizing my return on TGC because I have not been able to get their waiting lists to reliably get me on two tables. Whatever, I can start clearing my waiting Paradise bonuses.

I soon get on tables at both and start to get on a little rush, I’m quickly up 10BB on both tables. Then my son comes up and wants to know if I want to watch TV with him.

Now when your 16 year old voluntarily asks to spend time with you, you better damn well do it. So I agreed and started to log off of the tables.

My son decides he’s hungry and starts looking through the kitchen for food. I then hear, “Do we have anything to eat?” Evidently the 12 pounds of turkey and 5 pounds of ham that we have leftover from Christmas isn’t “anything to eat”. He heads to his grandparent’s house (around the block) for “something to eat”, which turns out to be Easy-Mac. He then comes back and decides he doesn’t want to watch TV anymore. grr

Back to the games. I couldn’t get onto TGC since evidently 3 1/2 full ring tables is enough, after all 20 person long wait lines is good, right? I quickly get onto a Paradise table and go on another little rush.

No more than 30 minutes later, Mrs. H comes up and asks if I want to watch a movie with her. Oy! I find out she wants to watch a movie we’ve both seen before (Gothika, which is a good flick IMHO, not scary, but kinda freaky, plus it’s got Halle Berry) so I beg off for a few mins. I continue to run well and when the movie is about halfway done I shutdown. After the movie I caught some of the National Arm Wrestling Championship on ESPN. Good stuff.

For the first time in weeks I posted winning sessions on every table (save the UKBetting which was hosed and only cost me 1-2BB), despite the interruptions. Now my losses have generally been in the 2-3BB range, so it’s not like I’m getting destroyed, but there is just a lot of red showing in my spreadsheet. In addition, a bunch of small losses add up over time, so this night was a good one.

This afternoon (Tuesday) I’m heading back to Canterbury. This will be a “blow off steam” poker session. Lately I’ve been playing too seriously and that just makes poker a grind, especially when you’re in a downswing. Many of you blow off steam by playing in the blogger’s NL table. Even if you don’t realize it, your wild play and such while on that table probably helps you in the long run, even if you end up dropping a buyin at that table. I haven’t done anything “fun” poker-wise for a long time, so today is going to be a fun afternoon at the casino.

The holidays at the Halverson compound went fairly smooth. We hosted the Christmas meal on Saturday and had the clan over for a good meal and just an all around good get together. Everything went off without a hitch and Mrs. H was definitely the hostess with the mostess. Christmas eve, when we open presents, went fine too with the exception of the Vikings choking yet again. I got some nice gifts, nothing poker related (which is probably good), and all was well.

I’ve continued my streak for December where every hand of poker played is counting toward a bonus. So far this month I’ve cleared $800 worth of bonuses. Wow! I wish I didn’t suck so that I could actually make money on top of the bonuses. I’ve still got over $200 at TGC to clear, but I’m a little pissed that they changed their requirements on that too. Now you can only clear x amount at any given limit. I think I’m low enough that I can clear all my remaining at 1/2, which would be fine if they would open up more than 4 games. I’m going to keep the streak alive though, only a couple more days becuase Thursday is out (Mrs. H’s birthday) as is Tuesday (see below), and Friday may be out too (New Year’s Eve), so that only leaves tonight and Wednesday. No problem.

For you locals, I’ll be heading down to Canterbury again on Tuesday (2004-12-28) sometime mid-afternoon into the early evening. I plan on going to have “fun”. I will be drinking. Not a lot, but some. I may even end up playing at 2/4. My friend Jason and I are heading down, so look for the black Ferrari cap at a 2/4 or 3/6 table.

If you’re interested in some of the trip reports from last week’s 2+2 Canterbury trip and don’t want to wade through the rest of the 2+2 stuff, here are some quotes from gonores:

I announce my intentions of busting everyone at the table and begin to employ the Praying Mantis style of betting. Frank, the dealer, informs me that he will not tolerate my antics, especially my yelling, as he has a headache. I do try to comply with his request, but my desire to be the center of attention outplayed my desire to straighten up and fly right. A few hands into Frank’s down, I drag a pretty-good sized-pot, maybe $100-$120. Frank shoves me the pot and shove maybe $15 back at Frank. Upon acceptance of said tip, Frank informs me I am welcome to scream and yell all I want. Is that how much your self-respect costs, Frank? $15? How much for your dignity? Somewhere in my alcohol-soaked brain, I make the connection that big tips = permissive staff.

New guy sits down and comments on Schneider’s stack. He responds by promptly adding a couple more racks to his stack. I find this unacceptable, and the arms race is on. Over the next hour, Schneids got his stack up to around $1400, I got mine up to $1200, and finally the floor steps in to inform us we can’t buy any more racks, as they are running out of blue chips.

His replacement is THE quintessential 3/6 all-star. It’s some young kid (too young to drink) with his posse following him around. Mr. vpip25/pfr5. I’m fairly certain he has a poster of The Crew in his room. The second you start watching him, you just know that he’s played online and he uses the following phrases quite liberally:

LOL
WTF
R U KIDDING ME?
UR A FUKKING MORON

As he is waiting for the blinds to come around, he watches to kid in the 3-seat with a huge pyramid of chips go 4bets preflop with the kid in the 5 seat, only to see the 3-seat’s 6x lose to the 5-seat’s 72o on a 76xxx board. He delivers this news to his posse and makes general commentary to the growing crowd behind us.

I am so pissed at myself for missing the extra $6 preflop that when the dealer starts pushing me the pot, I tell him I don’t want it. Keep it, Richard. This pushes 3/6 all-star off the edge. The look on his face will forever be etched in my memory, you could just see him trying to calculate how many ramen noodle meals that $21 could buy.

There is some good stuff here, you should go read it just for the fun factor. The relevant links are:

gonores trip report

Milo’s trip report

There are replies from the other participants within those threads.

The week before Christmas is a slow time around our office and on Wednesday we had our pot luck lunch. I was using this day as an excuse to go to the casino. We get an extra holiday since Christmas falls on a Saturday and I used 4 hours of it today. After the lunch, I hit the shopping center and dropped way too much money on gifts and then headed to Canterbury.

The “reason” for this trip was to meet up with some local 2+2’ers. The ulterior motive was to get out for a bit because I’m still a bit on tilt for having to miss the WPBT event in Vegas.

I roll in around 3pm and walk through below zero cold to see that there are already lists for every game. Well this isn’t quite what I expected. I signed up for both 3/6 and 4/8 and 10 minutes later I’m called for a 3/6 game. I take a seat in the 7s and buy in for a rack of blues. By 4pm the lists on all games less than 8/16 are at least 20 names long.

During this time I’m looking around for some of the people I was going to meet up with. I’ve got my Ferrari cap on which I always wear to the casino and others have posted what they were going to wear. I think I see a couple of people but decide to play on for a while first.

I proceed to get jack squat for about 2 hours. I’ve won a few small pots, but mostly just some drawing hands and second pairs which do nothing but cost me money. By this time I’m down to about $30 so I take a little break and come back and rebuy another rack.

Have you noticed that when you play live (or even online) that sometimes a certain hand comes up over and over again and either wins or loses all the time? There were a couple of hands like that at my table. The winning hand was A2o. The big loser? KK. There was a stretch of about 2 orbits where KK was dealt 6 times and they only won once. Of course, my table was so weak that they were only raised twice. Pocket aces were being played unraised repeatedly, it was crazy.

I got KK once UTG and raised. The older guy on the button and two others called. The flop was blanks and led out and only the older guy called. The turn brought an ace and I shuddered knowing that this guy plays any aces. I bet out anyway and was, of course, called. River was a blank and I should have checked because he was also weak and may not have bet, but I led out anyway. He called and flipped over A6o. He had nothing but an ace until the turn and called two bets cold with just an ace. Crazy stuff. I’m throughly convinced that people who play live are worse than any online players I have ever seen.

In case you haven’t played enough low limit poker and haven’t realized that Fancy Play Syndrome doesn’t work, here’s another lesson. A decent pot is built up between myself and the guy in the 1s. I’ve got pocket Jacks but the board has paired tens on the flop. I have been burned lately by full houses and in fact it hit me hard earlier in the session. I check/called bets down to the river when a Jack falls. I feign weakness with my full hous and just check hoping to check/raise the 1s who has bet every street. Of course, this time he just checks and I miss out on at least 1BB. Don’t slowplay at the low limits, it’s just not worth it.

My favorite play of the night was when the old guy in the 4s started going on tilt. He had worked up a big stack but had bled away most of it by this time. He gets UTG and throws out a straddle. This is the first time in the 3 hours that I had been there that anybody had done one and it was kind of surprising. The cards fly and I look at mine and see pocket tens. Two people fold and the short stack next to me calls and I decide to take advantage of the straddle and raise it up. Now it’s three bets to everybody else and 3 more people call. It gets back to the guy next to me and he raises it again. He announces that he’s down to three more chips so I pop it again to put him all in. One other guy and the straddler call. The flop is all low cards and it’s checked to me. No free cards from me, so I bet it out. The guy in the 1s (same guy from above) calls and the straddler folds so now it’s heads up. The turn brings an ace and obviously I didn’t like that, but decide to keep up the aggression and bet it out. LP smooth calls and the river is dealt. A beautiful ten is thrown down and I have learned my lesson and lead out and am called. He flips over A8s (!) and MHIG. Of course, I lost the main pot to the guy to my right who went all in with K8s and made a straight with his 8. The old guy has obviously not read about the correct way to straddle. What an amatuer.

At 7pm I get up to go meet the 2+2’ers at the bar. I come to find out that approximately 2/3 of the Minnesota based 2+2’ers are named “Brian”. I also notice that people thought my name was “Chris Dhal”. It never entered my mind that “chrisdhal” would be interpreted as that (I post as that and use that username everywhere). Of course, to me it was spelled “Chris D Hal” as in “Chris D. Halverson”. I walked up and people recognized the power of the Ferrari cap and said, “Oh, you’re Chris Dhal”. I looked at them and it hit me. Kind of a funny aside. Sorry. Anyway, we chit chat for a bit but people are anxious to get back to their games. They obviously aren’t sitting at my crappy game and/or are actually winning.

I make it back to my seat and notice that half the people are new. There was a tournament and have of the people at my table were playing in it. I had thought about it but I’m pretty cheap and it was a $100+20 with a semi-bad structure. I’d rather spend $120 playing 5 $20+2 SNGs at Party, so I skipped it.

I proceed to get nothing for the next hour, winning just a smallish hand here and there including getting KK again, raising and winning the blinds. Thanks. I decide I’m done for the night and start to rack my chips. Unfortunately I am not even going to fill one, much less two to get back to even.

My last hand comes up and I see K♥Q♥. Damnit. I’m probably going to lose some more on this hand before I pack up. Great. I call and am immediately raised by the guy to my left. Oh great, even better. Four others come along for the ride and the flop comes down T♥J♠3♥. Whoa. I’ve got a flush and a straight draw. Checked to me and I bet and am called by my nemesis in the 1s as well as two others. The turn brings a blank and I bet again hoping to knock people out and all but the 1s fold. The river shows another Jack and I’m nervous but decide it’s time to go for broke and throw out another six chips. He goes in the tank for a minute and folds. I push the cards into the muck and start racking the chips.

I then go talk to another 2+2’er who was watching the “2+2” table. He is just moving to the area and was the only other 2+2’er who was over 30 (I’m the other one). The 2+2 table consisted of Schneids (of $60K in 60 days fame) and gonores. Oh, the table was 3/6 and they both sat down with at least $700. In blue ($1) chips. They were in the 3s and 5s respectively. I feel bad for the 4s who was caught in between them as it was brutal. There was much beer being drunk and the other players were asking for table changes as fast as the floor would hear them. The look of terror on their faces was great. They were kind of ruining their game, but they didn’t care because there were at least 5 other 2+2’ers on the table change list who were trying to get on the table. They were building huge $100+ pots. At 3/6. They’d then tip the dealers $10 or so which is outrageous at this level (some people even chop the blues to tip 50 cents at this level). At Canterbury the dealers keep their tips so this caused them to go into turbo deal mode and try to get the hands dealt quickly. This caused even more concern to the other players. All in all it was pretty funny. I didn’t play in it, although it would have probably been easy for me to get into it since I was already playing 3/6. I wasn’t having a great day and decided to get out while I still had some chips to cash in.

All in all it was a pretty good time, but it was lacking something. Yes, it’s somewhat more fun, but if I just wanted to “play” it’s much easier to play online. B&M poker is a social activity and I didn’t get much in the way of socializing. After reading the WPBT reports one thing sticks out: The poker was secondary to the socializing with the other people. I did not have that, nor have I really ever had other than the couple times I’ve played with my friend Jason and even then we took it pretty serious (Jason doesn’t play online, so basically the only time he plays is live, so it makes sense to take it seriously). I think I’m going to change my attitute toward live play and just go and have fun. Have a drink or two and try to have some fun. The last couple of times I’ve come back from Canterbury I’ve felt down. Not necessarily because I’ve lost, but because it was a grind. It just really wasn’t as fun as I think it should be. Add to the fact that I have to drive 45 minutes, wait to get a table, and only get dealt about 30 hands an hour and it just adds up to some frustration.

Anyway, I finished down $60 (10BB), which kinda sucked, but it was still pretty fun despite my weak/tight table and coldish cards. It was cool to put a face with the names of some people, but not as good as it would have been to be in Vegas with the other bloggers. I’m glad I went, I just wish I would have won some money.

I left at 8pm and when I walked into the house at 9, Mrs. H was gracious enough to not even ask how I did. She knew I was going to having fun and that the money isn’t coming out of any household money, so she can accept the fact that I may lose. She’s a sweetheart

I took full advantage of my available time last night and sat down and cleared the remaining part of my Party bonus. Woo hoo! The session started out well, but suddenly took a downturn. I lost 4 hands with full house over full house. Yikes. That seems to be my nemisis over the last couple of days.

I was planning on cashing out and doing a quick deposit into Stars to get that bonus, but decided to wait until after I cleared the Party bonus so as to not activate the Cash Out Curse™ trigger. I was having enough trouble staying above water before that kicks in. I was also pissed last night because the new Party software altered my pattern map. sigh

So how did I come out on this bonus?

Total Bonus: $200
Winnings from playing: -$165.88
Net: $34.12
Total table hours: 29.75 (2 tables at a time)
Hourly Rate: $1.15

Nice.

This wasn’t one of my better bonuses, however it was better than InterPoker in October where I lost $150 in order to get $90. At least it was a positive addition to the bankroll and I got to experience Party again, for whatever that’s worth.

Now that this one is done, I’ve got to concentrate on TGC as that bonus expires. I may also have a table or two of TotalBet/UKBetting to get those before the end of the month. I have cashed out two thirds of my Party roll and deposited the $600 needed into Stars (where it doesn’t expire), which I will cash out in a couple of days.

I’ve got an über post coming about my thoughts on bonus chasing. I know I’ve turned into a total bonus whore lately, but there’s a method to my madness. Stay tuned (oooh…the suspense…)

I’ve left enough in my Party account to adequately bankroll me for January’s “Let’s See if Chris is On Crack or if He Really Is Decent at SNGs” experiment. Due to the abundance of bonuses this month I haven’t played in one single SNG. I had a great run in November, and I think I have a pretty good feel for those, so I’m going to test it out by trying to play a decent number of them in January. If things hold up, then I’ll at least have an idea if they’re profitable for me. It still won’t statistically be enough, but I more or less know where my ring game stands and I’m curious to see if SNGs are more profitable for me. I’ll be hitting the $20+2 SNGs fairly hard in January (if things go according to plan, which may not be the case, etc.). This may also change my thoughts on playing NL instead of limit. Not sure. Oh, don’t worry though, you’ll still see me whoring the Crypto sites, there’s just too much free money there to leave unclaimed.

Trip report from Canterbury tomorrow. Hopefully it will be better than the last one, but then again, it can’t be much worse. Not sure if I’ll even attempt to play in the 2+2 game, but I doubt it. The only potential upside is that if SuperTight Chris sits down with the drunken 30/60’ers, then I can probably come out ahead because the money at 3/6 is nothing to them. Just sit back and wait and take advantage of it. I’ll be there early, so it will kind of depend on how the rest of my session is going.