Chris Halverson’s Blog

After a couple of weeks off, I was able to get a lot of poker in this weekend. This weekend was dubbed “Clear Two Crypto Bonuses” weekend. I got one done and another over halfway, so it was basically a success given the low number of games they have going (and they had some downtime on Sunday afternoon). During this bonus clearing phase I generally play $1/$2 or £1/£2 (which is essentially 2/4) depending on the table and/or how much money I have at the site. What was interesting to me is that I had twice as much at one Crypto site as I do at Party. Wow. I basically only play there to get the bonus and so I only go there once a month. I’ve just let it sit there and spaced on what was there. What a nice surprise The nice thing about these bonuses is that I’ve almost always at least doubled the bonus due to winnings (one month I broke even on one). This month is my best yet. A few hours of three tabling and the bonus flew by and the profit was juicy.

I sweated Pauly and was hoping I’d bring him some luck. While he was playing in that I was playing a couple of games and I got the Sisters and stuck with them despite being raised on the flop when a K fell. I check/called the turn and my beautiful redheaded stepchild Q fell on the river giving me my set. I was raised and popped it again. He called and the Sisters won. I relayed this to the chat room and got a hearty reply. I thought this would bring some good karma and when Pauly made a move and went all in with his Sisters I was sure they’d hold up. Unfortunately they didn’t and we won’t yet get a wild trip report from Australia.

I’ve been going back and re-reading SSH. I pick it up and open to a page and read that part again. This book has paid for itself just this past weekend, there’s no doubt in my mind about it. I’ve been playing much better than I was a while ago. Maybe the time off helped. During that time I read parts of SSH again and kept up with things on 2+2 in addition to the copious poker blogs (which will not get read by me if you don’t have a RSS/Atom feed, there’s just too many to visit by hand, sorry), so I wasn’t out of the game entirely, I just wasn’t playing. I now have a week or two that I can get back to playing almost every night.

I think my play has definitely improved. I’ve gone back and reviewed a couple of my latest sessions and things seem much better. Not so much chasing unless the odds were there (ie. not going by my “gut”). Much more raising (and re-raising), although I could stand to do more. I still sometimes clam up when it’s raised in front of me. The results are there, but I’m trying not to be results oriented as I could have just been up against the worst people and got great cards. The playbacks are showing that I am making some much better decisions, so I’m happy about that. I’ve still got a long way to go, but I’m getting there step by step.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 19th, 2004 at 10:05 pm and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.