Chris Halverson’s Blog

Wow, I’ve been at this blog for a year now. I knew it was in December sometime, but never thought to look until I saw that Mean Gene had just celebrated his first year too. I thought he had been at it longer than that, but it looks like we started within a few days of each other. Of course, he actually has good content, so that’s probably why I thought he had been around longer.

During the past year I’ve “written” 286 posts including 242 that are ostensibly about poker. Wow. I’ve also been featured in a magazine and a couple of online articles. Gotta like that.

I guess the cool thing to do is to pick out what I think are my highlights. Here’s a few:

Canterbury Tales - My First Time Live

Chris and Hdouble Play Hollywood Park

My Trip to Las Vegas

Lucky Nugget Casino Tilt

Reivew of The Gourds Concert

Well, there’s a few that potentially don’t suck.

I just wanted to take this opportunity to say thanks to everybody who stops by and reads this here little part of the Internet. Thanks also go to all the other bloggers out there who keep up the encouragement and keep raising the bar in terms of what constitutes good content (I wish you’d stop that, it’s making it tough to keep up).

Thanks again and feel free to say “Hi” if you see me at the tables (I’m “chrisdhal” from New Brighton virutally everywhere).

Three Kings with Unlimited Raising

My Three Kings let me down Friday night and I’m not happy about it.

I was playing Interpoker for a while to clear some of the backlogged bonus while taking advantage of the fact that it was Friday night when the loose come out to play. Things were going pretty well. I was up 20BB on one table before it broke, up a bit on another and even on another.

Unfortunately on another I was down to half a buyin and hadn’t won a hand in forever. Both of the Three Kings Incidents(TM) happened on said table.

One KK hand had my flopped set losing to a rivered straight when the guy stayed in with QTs after he flopped an OESD.

The next one was more brutal. Very brutal. I was dealt my Kings UTG+1 and raised it up. It’s folded around to MP who smooth calls and everybody else folds. The flop comes down K28 and I check hoping to trap on the later rounds. The turn fills me up when another 8 falls and my lead out bet is called. The river brings what I thought would be a great card for me, a beautiful red Ace. I was hoping that he’d have another ace and this would entice him to raise my bet. He thankfully raised me and I raised him back, to which he raised again. Huh? My mind was reeling trying to figure out what he could have.

An important consideration to keep in mind at this point in time is that a recent upgrade to the Crypto software implemented unlimited raising if the round starts heads up. This leads us to 5 raises on the river before he’s all in. My breath left me when he flipped over a pair of slowplayed rockets. Ouch. It’s probably good that he ran out of money before I did (although I was now down to $5) otherwise I would have lost more.

Actually, now that I look back at my PokerTracker stats, I got poket Kings 6 times today (too bad that didn’t happen a couple of weeks ago during InterPoker’s Cowboys promotion) and I’m up 8BB with them, so all is not lost. The qualifier is that I only had 3 kings during those two hands.

This was also the first time that I was “outted” as a poker blogger. One person asked if I was me and then my nemesis from above chimed in that he read it too. Probably old news to a lot of you, but this is the first time it’s happened to me online (ironically it has happened live, but not online). Thanks for reading, I guess if I’m going to lose 7.5BB in one hand to somebody it may as well be a reader

Omaha

In my desire to clear raked hands as well as to learn something new, I thought about hitting the Omaha tables. Of course, I know nothing other than the basic rules of the game, so it’s kinda scary to sit down at even a 1/2 table without ever playing the game for real.

In order to remedy this problem I pulled up The Gaming Club because they have micro-limits and I have money there from the OIC. I sat myself down at a 0.10/0.20 limit O8 table and got ready for the ride.

Wow, is this a very different game. Of course this is “Thanks Mr. Obvious” material, but it really is interesting. Of course I had 2 HE tables up at the same time, so that made it a bit more difficult to concentrate on the Omaha game. Of course, when there’s only 20 cents riding on your decision, you can be a little distracted. One thing that is kind of interesting is that the “tell me my hand” text is deceiving now. It may say you have a pair of eights, but it misses the fact that you have about 4 other draws available to you. It’s pretty useless for Omaha. The other big thing that is very different compared to hold ‘em is that a pair is virtually worthless. There was hardly a pot that went to showdown that wasn’t a straight, flush or full house.

My big hand of the night was when I was dealt KKTT and the flop came down TTx. Woo hoo! Quads! I bet or raised whenever I could and it ended up being a four person showdown and I pulled down a 35BB pot. I actually finished that session +17BB. It was pretty fun and was something different. I think I’m going to try this out some more at the micro-levels and see if I can get a grasp on some of the basics before I delve into the 1/2 games at Crypto, but I think that may be an optimal way to clear the raked hand bonuses, at least in a timely fashion becuase virtually every hand is raked. Of course, if I would just win more at my regular hold em tables it would be a worry

For the first time in a month, I played some poker that was dedicated to just one goal. I didn’t have to “worry” about the OIC last night and things went well. Very well. I started the night off by going to a school function. I got to meet my son there because he had taken the car out earlier in the night. After getting back and watching the end of Survivor, Mrs. H and I watched CSI and Without a Trace. In other words, a nice relaxing evening. Then the fun started.

I pulled up two tables at William Hill to pound out the £5/hour bonus (I needed 2 more hours total). Things went well and I ended the night +15BB on both tables. I think I cleared the hourly bonus, but I’m having trouble figuring out their stupid account thing. The balance is wrong on the site, but correct if I try to sit at a table. I’ve never done William Hill before, so I’m not sure what the deal is, if you can help me understand it, please let me know. Edit:Nevermind, I logged back in and it appears things are credited now. I think I may be a bit short, but it could be the exchange rate, but it’s close enough that I’m going to move to Interpoker.

InterPoker Promos are Up

InterPoker has put up their 12 days of Christmas promotions. You can only see 5 days ahead of time, but go to their site to check them out. The first one, on Dec 13, is a 20% deposit match up to $50. I have been holding off on my monthly deposit there while waiting for this bonus to pop up. You will, however, have to make two deposits as the T&C say:

If you have not received your monthly $100 match deposit you will receive this promotion first and will have to redeposit for the additional 20%

I was hoping I could do just one, but I guess I’ll have to do two. I still have hands to clear from last month’s bonus too (I just made the deposit and didn’t play at all). When you add in both monthly bonuses here I’ll have close to 1500 raked hands to clear. Yikes. Looks like I’ll be camped out on InterPoker for a while, so look for me there.

WPBT Vegas

Have fun everybody. You still suck, but I hope you have a great time

You all suck.

I’m going to say it again: Nice effing timing.

You suck.

(I’m only cutting slack to the local Vegas/Laughlin and Los Angeles people)

Scott sums it up best here:

By the way, all you poker bloggers that are going to Las Vegas this weekend? EFF RIGHT OFF! Bastards. Bunch of DINKs and singletons flush with cash and no familial responsibilities taking off for Sin City right here in the middle of the holiday season, while all us drudgy old family guys stay here and be responsible, upstanding, contributing members of society. Don’t mind us guarding the gates of civilization here, guvnor — go ye & have a merrye olde tyme. Bastards. Drink one for me, and one for Halverson. One day you’ll all be married with kids and extended families, and we’ll be doing the Carribbean Poker Blogger Tour with our wives and our grown children over the entire Christmas / New Year’s holiday while yall are squatting in frigid Philly or Cincy or Detroit, burning dirty diapers for heat. I expect good trip reports, too, you bastards. None of this “got too drunk and forgot what happened with that one-legged lady in the hot pants” business. Full reports. With pictures.

There damn well better be some good reports and pics. Hoist one for me you degenerate, irresponsible, cash flush yahoos. Try not to screw it up too badly so that we can actually have another one sometime.

You suck.

Wednesday was my office’s holiday party and we went bowling (for the locals, we went to the Park Tavern). I’m good for about two games and after that I’m down to the 10 pound balls. There was some good friendly competition between myself and another guy (we split, I won one game, we tied the second when I flubbed the tenth frame, and I got destroyed in the third), lots of good conversation and food. Plus I got to leave work at about 2:45. They gave us a couple of tickets for free drinks, so I waited until the last hour and got a couple Captain and Cokes. After dropping my friend off, I tuned the iPod to the Gourds and decided to get in the mood to go big or go home in the OIC.

I got home and watched “Lost” with my son, who was riding high after he passed his driver’s test, and then pulled up TGC. To get into the mood I pulled up iTunes and started a Megadeth bootleg and had the WPT muted on the TV in the background. I was set to be aggressive.

I busted.

I’ll post my final rankings and such when I get them, but I was a maniac tonight. Lots of raising, very little calling. Unfortunately I hit exactly 1 flop and I still didn’t win the hand. I didn’t raise with any two cards, but if I got into a pot I raised pre-flop. I whittled away my $29 stack to $10 when I got KJs in LP. I raised and the other 5 people called. The flop gave me two more of my suit including the ace. It’s bet and I raise with the nut flush draw and all call. The turn gives me my flush but paired the board. There’s a bet and I raise, but raised again and eventually I’m all in on the turn. Of course, MP filled up on the turn and I busted out of the OIC.

I’ll post my thoughts on my overall experience after I have some time to think about it but suffice it to say that I enjoyed it and thought it was worthwhile. In the meantime, I’ve got a refund form to fill out, a cocktail glass to fill with some 14 year old scotch and a TiVO’ed poker show to watch.