Chris Halverson’s Blog

Eighty freaking degrees.

WTF? We come to California for the purpose of snowboarding for a week and it’s 80 degrees on the mountain. Unbelievable.

Needless to say, the heat has cut into my poker playing time. How does that work? Well, I planned on playing a lot during the day while my son was snowboarding. Since he’s not out as much (since the mountain turns to slush by noon), I haven’t played as much as I had planned. The day was pretty uneventful. Watched a movie (”Bruce Almighty” - pretty good), ate at a local Mexican restaurant, played Crazy 8s with my son (lost 8 games to 3 before he got bored), then watched some TV.

Poker wise, I played some in the morning/early afternoon and was down 2BB total. When my son when to bed (10PM) I poured some Johnnie and played some more. For a couple of tables I couldn’t win a damn thing. I jumped a couple times when tables got short handed (and from Mr. I-Raise-Everything, thankfully he was in front of me). Then on the last table I couldn’t lose, up 33BB on that table.

Overall for the day: +21BB.

Poker is treating me well, too bad I haven’t stepped up to 1/2 yet. *sigh* During the day the 1/2 tables are hard to find other than 6max (at Empire), and since my play time has been limited I haven’t bothered waiting for one. I just hope the poker gods look favorably on me when I get to the B&M later this week with Henry.

The upside? I think I’m playing pretty smartly. I hate to say it, but a little time off helped a bit. I was able to not get bent out of shape about things and was refreshed a bit while playing. I look forward to playing and it’s not just something I expect to do every night. Of course, I’d rather play poker than do homework, but sometimes life gets in the way. I also like Lou Krieger’s article about quickly figuring out pot odds. It may not be totally exact (according to the masses on RPG), but it’s close enough for the girls I know. In fact, it’s great for somebody like me, who, while pretty smart, still has some “issues” with doing math quickly. I did catch myself chasing a couple of times, but a couple times where four flushes on the board while I held the A, so I called to the river (not sure if that’s still the right play though), but I caught myself and adjusted quickly. Even on the tables where I was down I feel I was playing well. I just need to keep this up and not get cocky, then maybe I can raise to the ranks of Fuzz, and then get to the point where I can lose $500 in one night and still keep going ($500 is more than my total bankroll).

Worst beat of the day: Flop two pair, turn pairs the board and makes me a full house. I’m in EP and lead off betting. Called around, river is a rag. I bet out again and it’s called around again. I’m psyched thinking I’ve got this but NOOOOOO…LP has quads! The turn gave him quads and he never once raised. At least I lost to something good, and wasn’t even rivered, but he could have got a couple more bets out of me along the way as I was sure I had him. I guess I’m happy he didn’t, but it still sucks to lose with a full house.

Best hands: Full houses. I got something like 7 of them today. Won with all but the quads one.

Random differences between California (mostly LA) and Minnesota:

• Billboards for TV shows everywhere
• Billboards for strip clubs all over the place, including ones for two words that just don’t seem right together: Spearamint Rhino.
• There must be a city ordinance in Big Bear that every business has a wood carving of a bear out front
• Gas is 60 cents more expensive than in MN
• Drivers are crazy
• There is bumper to bumper traffic on Sunday
• Did I mention the hot, half naked women?

BTW Scott, my son does play paintball. A lot (well, he does when he’s not on an imposed academic suspension by me). In fact, he’s on a sponsored team. The event that we watched was a pro event: $2K to enter, plus travel, lodging, etc. In other words, a kids amatuer team isn’t going. Oh, and yes, he was very interested in checking out the vendor areas where the pinup girls (who do ads for guns and such) were signing posters and such. Both days were overcast and fairly chilly, so there were not a lot of people on the beach.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 24th, 2004 at 2:01 am and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.