Chris Halverson’s Blog

Introduction

Approximately one year ago I started playing poker so I figured this would be a good time to do a review. This is a little long, but may be of use to some of the other people starting out, and even some of you who have been around for a while. This isn’t a totally rosy posting, but I wanted to give an honest recap of my first year of playing poker.

The Beginning

It all started innocently enough. I was on my yearly trip to watch the Champ Car race in Wisconsin and ESPN was showing the 2003 WSOP. I sat in a run down Motel 6 (OK, that’s redundant) and watched three hours of it in a row and loved every minute of it. When I got home I noticed that the Travel Channel had this show called “The World Poker Tour”. Hmm…I started watching it religiously. About a month later I was itching to play some poker. I had never really played poker, what little I had was 5 card draw, probably with some wild card. Never for real money, just for fun. I figured I had this Hold ‘Em thing at least semi-figured out, it seemed pretty straightforward. I talked to my wife and we concluded that it’d be OK to try it out.

Online

Having decided to try out some online poker, I had to decide where to go. At this point in time, advertising was OK and Ultimate Bet was advertising like crazy on the WPT. I dutifully went there, created an account, and started playing the play money tables. While I had no experience, it quickly became evident that this was of little value since there was nothing at risk. I then went and deposited $50 and nervously went to a real money 25/50, as in cents, table. I did OK for a week or so, not really winning, but not really losing. Then I went on a little winning streak, got overconfident, and lost it all.

I was devastated. How could I lose it all? Unbelievable. While I knew I wasn’t really good, I figured I had to be better than the people just throwing money around, after all, I was actually trying. I hadn’t heard of variance yet.

About this time, my wife got me Phil Hellmuth’s book and I read it immediately! Now that I’ve read other, more “serious” books, I can say that his is lacking in many ways, but at the time it was very helpful to me! I had zero experience and that book was probably the right one at the right time for me! It didn’t get into the math part, ie. odds, which for me was good due to my lack of any gambling experience (odds of any sort just freaked me out)! I read the Hold ‘Em parts a couple of times while basically skipping over the stud parts! (Ok, I’ll stop with the exclamation points, if you’ve read his book, you’ll get it.)

I redeposited at UB and tried again. This time I built it up a bit and was at least winning. Of course, at those micro limits it’s hard to see progress. I soon found RGP and started wading through that. It was there that I heard about how bad the players were at Party Poker. Now, I had no illusions that I was anywhere close to good, but I figured I would stand a better chance there than at the tougher games at UB.

I cashed out of UB (setting up Neteller in the interim) and deposited into Party. I started at the 50/1 and ground it out for a while. I held even for a while, then started making a little headway. I started winning a bit more, but at least was more consistent.

Sometime in early November or so I stumbled across a posting in RGP that piqued my interest. It was a trip report about this guyy’s first time playing poker in Vegas after primarily being a blackjack card counter. He posted it in RGP and had a pointer to his blog. I’ve been a longtime blog reader, but this was my first poker blog. I read the article in RGP and then wen to his site to read the rest of his “story”. I am, of course, referring to Hdouble. That’s right, you can blame him for all the drivel I’ve spewed over the last 10 months or so. I read his whole blog, which was about a dozen entries long at the time, in one afternoon. I believe I left a few comments and soon we had an email exchange going which led to instant messaging. Henry has proved to be a very valuable resource in my poker growth.

Of course, from there it was a short jump to Iggy who has also proven to be of immense value to me in my poker growth. Chatting and emailing with him helped me through some of the tough times of my short time that I had played.

I spent a lot of time grinding away at 50/1. I felt I was improving play wise, but the results weren’t there. I now know it’s important to not be results oriented, but at the time I had been playing for about 2 months and I didn’t know any better. Results were very important as I had no other way to determine how I was doing. I worked my $50 into about $400, then thought that I’d give 1/2 a shot. That was a disaster. I’m not sure if it was bad play or just variance (I still didn’t have Poker Tracker), but I lost over half my roll in just a couple of days. I was, once again, devastated. I thankfully hadn’t gone bust this time, but mentally I was in bad shape.

It was in December that I decided that I had something to offer the poker world and started this here blog. I’m not going to go on too much about that right now, I’ll wait until December to regale you with my thoughts on a year of blogging, but suffice it to say, without readers, comments, email, etc., I would not be where I am today. Thanks.

The Middle Times

I was starting to burn out at 50/1. While I was doing well and building the bankroll, I was getting frustrated by the crazy play there. After a few talks with Henry and Iggy, I was encouraged to try 1/2 again. By now I had played live a few times (including once with the mighty HD at Hollywood Park) as well as having played a lot more 50/1. I still wasn’t sure I was ready. I had made another lame attempt while on vacation which drained the roll a bit, but I was assured that I could succeed there, so I made the jump.

It was about this time that I truly started separating money from chips. Playing live helped a lot. Of course, when playing online you are never physically pushing anything “real” into the pot, but you still see a balance that has a dollar sign in front of it. Live forces you to look at something that represents money, but really has no value in itself outside of the game. Once I made the real separation my game started to pick up a bit.

I also started to pay attention more to odds and making the “right” action. This involved not being so weak and folding on the river with second pair just because you “know” you’re beat. There are obviously times that you should, but even weak/tight Lee Jones says that you if you have some sort of decent hand and can see a showdown for 1BB then you probably should.

Last Quarter

Over the last three months or so, I have been just going through the grind. I play Party 2/4 as my main game, but I also hit three different Crypto sites every month for their bonuses. I play those as a $200 (combined) bonus every month is still enough to make it worthwhile. The games are generally good depending on the time of the month and time of day. Party still has a ton of great games at the 1/2 and 2/4 levels and I play those after I clear the Crypto bonuses.

My 2/4 results are slowing going in the right direction, but one bad night can wipe out two nights of modest wins. This has proven to be a big mental play. When I play back hands in Poker Tracker I see that most of the time I am doing the right thing, it just doesn’t always work out. I know that is part of the game, but it still makes things difficult at times.

My win rate has leveled off a bit lately. I really seem to be treading water. I’m not losing overall, but then again, I’m not really gaining. This has become frustrating for me as I think I’m better than I am playing. I know I still have a lot to learn, but at times it feels like I’m just a big fish. I’m trying to incorporate new techniques such as those outlined in SSH and while that has gone well, I think sometimes I get carried away which costs me. I still have a lot to learn, but it still gets frustrating sometimes when it doesn’t feel like you are making any progress. Ed Miller’s aggressive recommendations also adds a fair amount of variance, so I’m sure that has had some affect as well.

I’ve hit flat spots in my play before. These usually result in a bit of time where I stay flat and am trying something new. One example was the “ram and jam”. This caused me all sorts of variance for a while, but ultimately I got out of it. I am hoping that I am in the same sort of “slump” right now. I feel I’m playing well, but I’m trying new things. I really anticipate some sort of “jump” again soon. I know this cannot be predicted nor can it be counted on, but I have experienced this type of thing in the past and have seen other people refer to the same type of thing. Incorporating something radically new into your game, such as heightened aggression, is bound to add a lot of variance into your game. I know that I overdo it at times, which is something I’m starting to rein in which should result in my variance leveling out.

Learning

I have spent a lot of reading about poker. I tend to get a little distracted at times and I admit that I don’t always absorb things quite easily enough. That’s why you’ll read me saying that I read SSH again. I need to read it again in order to remember it. I do know that I learn something every time I pick up SSH, Jones or Carson. There is a lot of information in those books and they are all helpful.

I also learn a lot by reading 2+2. I read quite a few of the fora there and generally pick up something useful. While not everything is golden, there are some smart people there and for the most part they are helpful. You can fairly quickly spot the good people, and here’s a hint, it’s not always the people with the most posts. There are some really sharp people there, and it’s definitely better than RGP. I’ve also been able to meet some people “live” through the site which is always a plus.

I’ve never been the greatest at math, so sometimes the math part of poker eludes me and I know I don’t always make the right choices. That alone has prevented my growth as making even a couple wrong calls per session can hurt your win rate. I am working hard at making sure I pay more attention to this side of the game as I know it is important. I must say I do not ignore odds, but there are times that I know I don’t pay enough attention to them.

Final Thoughts

My first year as a poker player has been fairly well documented in these pages. I’ve been honest about my winnings and have not held back about my tough times. I hope I have been helpful to some of you out there. I honestly think it’s helpful to read that not everybody is making $1000 a day out there. When you read a lot of poker blogs and other reports you sometimes get the feeling that everybody is a winner. I appreciate the bloggers out there that are honest about losing. It is tough to write about losing money and how bad you feel you are playing in a public forum. I hope you have got the feeling that I have been honest with you. I haven’t put my bankroll numbers out there because I don’t feel it’s really any of anybody else’s business how much money I have out there. I have, however, given honest results in terms of BB won and lost.

Have I been killing the games like many of you have been? No, I haven’t. Why not? I’m smart, have played a fair number of hands (although nowhere near enough, some of you play more in a week than I have in a year), and have read quite a bit. Honestly, I’m not sure why although I have a few theories. First off, I have a pretty busy “real” life. I have a son in high school who had some school troubles last year, so that obviously takes priority. There’s normal “family” stuff. I’m also taking classes to get my Masters degree. Therefore, while I play pretty much every night, sometimes it’s just more of a relaxation thing. I do it because I enjoy it. Before poker I would play Playstation2, computer games or something. I admit I don’t always play my best in these cases. I’ve had a long day at work, family time, homework, etc. and I just want to do something for “me” a bit. These are the times that the term “pot odds” never enters into a calculation and I may have a drink (or three) while playing. Has this hurt me? Yes, and it definitely has hurt the bankroll at times.

I also have a good job, even if I complain about it at times. I am paid well, so I don’t need poker to supplement my income. While I wouldn’t turn down extra money, I don’t need it, so it’s not always a big deal. That being said, I’ve been playing on winnings (both live and online) and have paid back my initial deposits, so in some reality, this is all just “play” money (it sure felt that way when I went on tilt at the Lucky Nugget). That means I’m not playing to pay the bills and that if I bust out it would not hurt my real life at all. I obviously do not anticipate busting out, but then again, I don’t worry about moving up as quickly as I maybe should.

Am I missing out on the “golden age” of poker? Probably. Does it really matter to me? Not that much. I wish I was making more, but that’s life. I have been looking for something to make some extra cash on the side, and I was hoping poker would help. While I have run the bankroll up into four figures, I keep it in the game in hopes of moving up levels.

The nice thing about all this is that I still enjoy poker. I’ve burned out on hobbies before, but I really still enjoy playing, even during bad times. I’ve come to accept that I will, no matter what I do, have downturns. I’ve talked with bloggers who would mop the floor with me who have gone through huge downswings. If it can happen to them, it sure as hell can happen to me. I still look forward to playing as often as I can. I enjoy thinking and reading about poker. The situations that you can come up with are innumerable and even those change based on limit, table makeup, etc. I wish I could play live more, I enjoy that much more than online even if it may not be as profitable. In other words, despite the fact that I’m not raking in thousands of dollars a month playing poker, it’s also not costing me anything and it brings me a lot of enjoyment.

Finally, a big part of that enjoyment comes from the friends I’ve made through poker. The poker blogging community is great. People like Henry, Iggy, Pauly, Scott, BG, Sean, MeanGene, Grubby, Maudie and Al got me through the early days. Let’s not forget Felicia who brings credibility to our little neck of the woods through her dedication to honesty, her tireless reporting and obviously, her great playing ability. I talk about you guys a lot to my “real” friends and family. “My poker buddies” are well known, if not by name (most likely not), but by reputation and location (”my poker friend in LA/NYC/Texas/etc.”), to quite a few people here in flyover land. I can say that I wouldn’t enjoy poker as much if it weren’t for all of you. Thank you for all your help, encouragement, ribbing, and general camaraderie, I really appreciate it.

Here’s hoping you have a good year and hopefully next year at this time I’ll be able to report that I’m making a nice secondary income from poker. If not, I hope I’m still having fun because in the end, that’s what’s important.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 18th, 2004 at 6:10 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.