Chris Halverson’s Blog

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 KhQh. 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 ThJs3h. 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

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 23rd, 2004 at 12:00 am 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.