Chris Halverson’s Blog

OIC Freeroll

Saturday night was the freeroll tournament for the OIC participants who made it to level 2 (1/2). It was held at 5pm Central time, which may have explained why there were only 30 people who signed up.

Talk about an overlay.

Well, “overlay” isn’t the correct word as all freerolls, by definition, have an infinite overlay. What I mean is that the payout structure was paying 25 places. When only 30 people signed up, that meant that even schmoes like me had a chance to cash.

Woo hoo!

Gaming Club had a pretty good structure though. 10 minute levels, starting with T1500 in chips. I got nothing for the first orbit, then in my second small blind I see ATo. Finally, something that may be playable. Suddenly my connection is gone. I can’t get logged back into TGC for what ends up being six hands.

After that I was totally card dead and basically just waited for a chance to push. My table was super tight, but also had the top two stacks at it, including directly to my right. He stole every blind of mine. I eventually pushed with AQs from UTG and everybody folded.

We started hand for hand as soon as two people were out. Once we made it to the money normal play resumed. I basically kept an eye on the other small stacks and just hoped I could last until 20th place to get $20 (21-25 was $15).

Finally 21st place busted and I’m up to the second level of money. By this time we’re past the first break, but the blinds are 75/150 and I’ve got T390. Not a good situation.

I get AQs again and push, which barely constitutes a minimum raise, and am called. My hand doesn’t hold up against K6o and IGHN in 19th place, pocketing $20 for 60 minutes of play.

Thanks again to TGC for putting on the OIC and going through the extra work of having a freeroll, it was much appreciated.

Saturday Night NL At Party

After the tourney, I first went and threw some money into Stars and registered for the WPBT tourney. Then I pulled up Party for some 25NL action.

I get seated at a table where two guys were arguing with each other. You’ve all seen it: “You suck”, “Let’s play HU”, “I’m going to take all your money”, etc. The best though was when Guy #1, after losing $15 to Guy #2 says something to the effect of “I wipe my ass with $15”. Woo hoo! “Tilt” has made it’s showing at the 25NL tables. Guy #2 had the best response though:

Guy #2: so when u wipe ur ass with $15 is it like 15 singles or 3 fives or a 10 and a 5? like how do u work that out?

I about spit my diet Coke all over my laptop. It was classic.

Unfortunately for me I pretty much sucked and lost 1.5 buyins to a bunch of monkey poker plays. I then decided that maybe I’ll take a night off and watch some movies.

Movie Night

A couple weeks ago I borrowed Anchorman from somebody at work and finally got around to watching it tonight. I thought it was pretty good, not great and not quite as funny as I had hoped it would be, but I was entertained and really, that’s all I ask for.

Being that it was only 9pm when I finished that, I decided to throw in another movie. I had bought Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle a couple of weeks ago and just hadn’t watched it yet. I have to say, I was a little disappointed. In terms of goofy and/or stoner movies it’s defiitely a distant third to Dude, Where’s My Car? and Road Trip. Neil Patrick Harris, aka “Doogie Houser, MD”, totally steals the show. It wasn’t bad, but I’d rather watch Road Trip for the 37th time.

ESPN Tilt

After the series premier of “Tilt”, I offered up a fairly strong opinion that it pretty much sucked. The problem with that opinion was that I didn’t follow my own longstanding mantra:

You cannot judge a new TV show based on the series premier

There’s just too much stuff that has to happen to make the first show very good. Yes, it was corny. Yes, the ones after that have had some really bad lines and such, but it’s getting better. Yes, I’ve watched every episode so far despite having to work around college basketball to do so (plus I’ve downloaded them from the Internet, so I can go back and review as necessary).

I’m not a big fan of how it portrays high stakes poker as being full of cheats. That’s the last thing we, as people who play poker regularly, should want.

The show is getting better though now that we’ve got some background into the characters. The overall theme of the show is kind of interesting. The play on Andy Beal (if I remember his name correctly) from last week’s episode was interesting.

Best line from Episode #3: No one likes the thought of his daughter getting pounded by some guy. but if it has to be someone, I guess it’s okay if it’s you.

Awesome.

This still isn’t a great show by any means, but the comedy factor is worth it alone. I mean, if you’re getting ready to go to the big game and want to cheat with somebody through hand signals and grunts you may want to:

• Figure out the signals before walking over to the table


• Not arrange the signals in the middle of the casino


• Not be seen with accomplice minutes before walking to the table

Then again, I’ve never tried to cheat a big game, so maybe I’m missing somethng. The funny thing is they showed them both sitting around the hotel room for hours before going down. Why didn’t they work that out while up there?

The string raise by the Matador was lame though. I’m surprised nobody pulled a gun on him (flashback to episode 1).

Anyway…I’ll keep watching, it’s not bad and until CBS gets back to showing new shows on Thursday there’s really nothing else on at that time (new Survivor in a couple weeks though) and even then I’ll continue to download it at least.

Thanks to four tabling I was able to clear the latest Party reload bonus.

Thanks to the blogger table I lost money (before the bonus).

Well, actually I had a terrible day on Friday. I played about 800 hands and was down overall. I tried a little hit and run when I came home early from work. That ended badly, dropping a buyin at one table.

After Mrs. H and I had a sausage pizza at Godfathers, I came home and started four tabling the 25NL. I played pretty well, but was down two buyins by the end of the night. I got a little over aggressive when I had cowboys, then I got nailed holding the small side of a full house. I don’t think the four tabling really hurt that, because really, how often can you lay down a full house? I’m not that good, so I called.

I was playing at a table with John-Paul for a while (down a buyin there, but shortly after he left I tripled up, so JP, I turned out OK on that table) when he types into the chat:

Iggy is at my other table. Go to Table XXX

Hmmm…just what I need, a way to blow some more money. I decide to throw caution to the wind and get on the waiting list and shortly thereafter I’m seated directly to Iggy’s right, with JP and Derek to his left and a couple other bloggers to my right (sorry, let me know and I’ll fix up the links).

The 25NL tables that I played at on Friday seemed very tight. Iggy, who had professed to having numerous pints of Guinness as well as a (un)healthy amount of Vicodin, was berating the table for being too tight. Repeatedly he threw out:

YOU ALL ARE PANSIES! MAKE THE CALL!

Of course, he suckered me into one hand already that had brought me down enough to the point where I capped off again. I can’t face a blogger table without ammo.

I finally clear my bonus and announce it to the table. I then go to the cabinet and pour a nice big glass of Oban Scotch and sit back down. Now that the bonus is cleared, I’ve started to drop the other tables as I get to my blinds. Soon it’s just the blogger table that’s left.

Then it happened. Again.

Iggy had just got done ranting about the general wuss nature of the bloggers that night. After all, it was Friday, where’s the gambool?

The hook was set.

The next hand I’m dealt A♣6♦ and complete from the small blind. Iggy checks. The flop comes Q♠K♣A♠. Hmm…OK, I’ve got top pair but it’s a scary board. I check. Iggy throws out $2 and we lose the LP limper and I call. Turn is an innocent 5♣ but Iggy fires out $6.

WTF? How can that help him? Does he have KQ or some other two pair? I put him on two pair maybe. I figure I still have outs so I call. The river is the 7♠. I check and Iggy, in his drug induced state bets $17.36 of the $17.40 that I have left.

I go into the tank.

I still fear the two pair, but the scotch is telling me he’s bluffing. He’s railed on the table all night and he’s just trying to prove a point. My logical mind is telling me I’m beat. After all, top pair on a board like that probably isn’t good, right?

Guess which mind I listened to?

That’s right, the scotch spoke. Not this time bucko, you’re not bluffing me out of this pot.

Of course, in my slightly alochol induced state I forget to raise the extra 4 cents and just call. Yet another sign of impending doom.

Iggy flips over the T♣J♣ for the flopped straight. Nice.

It figures that this was one of the times that he wasn’t bluffing.

At least he said he was sorry.

Anyway…I was down while playing at Party, but thanks to the bonus I still came out ahead. I’m not a big fan of these small buyin NL tables though. They seem to be a total crapshoot. I’m more of a fan of the deeper stack games at Prima and Crypto sites. It is fun to push all in, but if because you have to in order to make a pot sized bet on the flop.

I’m going to keep playing the NL tables though. I think I’m getting better at it and one bad day does not mean anything in the grand scheme of things. The $45 I lost at the blogger table kinda sucks though.

I don’t think the 4 tabling hurt me either. While probably not optimal, playing NL, at least for me, boils down to playing very strong hands only. Playing four tables prevents me from getting bored and deciding that the low unsuited connectors look good enough to play because I haven’t been in a hand in 20 minutes. I probably will not play four tables all the time, but I may do three more often than not. We’ll see, but I was doing pretty well until last night, so I think I’ll be OK multitabling no limit. Don’t worry, I’ll keep you updated.

Gee, thanks

Party Poker Bonus

Despite my initial concerns, my quest to clear the 1400 hands to clear the latest Party bonus, I am now confident that it will not be a problem. I’ve cleared half of it over the last two days and to top it up I’m actually ahead! Woo hoo!

I also did something that I’ve never done before: 4 tabled. Even when only playing premium hands, it’s easy to get involved in two hands at a time. I think I missed a couple of bets tonight while I was feeding the cat and taking the dog out while playing in two hands (gotta love wireless). Other than that, things have been going well in no limit land. Four tabling is pretty wild though, but playing NL and using GameTime+ makes it easier. I’m going to keep doing that at least during the bonus period. As long as it doesn’t affect my play, I may keep it up. I find it does keep my attention more. It seems pretty sad that playing two tables at a time is too slow.

I have been playing pretty well and my ability to call when I think I have the best hand has been improving. I would have doubled up on my third hand of the night, but instead lost and had to rebuy. I was ahead until the river, and we were both all in pre-flop, so at least I got my money in while I had the best hand. I can’t do much more than that, the rest is up to the cards. Despite rebuying in the first 10 minutes, I still came out ahead overall on my tables on Wednesday night, just barely, but at least it wasn’t a loss. Tuesday night was a pretty good night results wise, but more importantly, playing that many hands in such a short time has exposed me to more situations which is helping with my calls and bets.

Well, that and the play is pretty bad at the Party $25NL. Of course, that also can increase variance due to people playing any ace, or any two cards for that matter. That’s OK though, they eventually give away their money.

Playing With Other Bloggers

I’ve played with a few bloggers over the last couple of days including Pauly who got sucked out on terribly by a total clown at one table the other night. The guy was a maniac and, of course, got lucky against the fine Dr.

Wednesday night found me playing with JP Costales. In true blogger fashion he played the Hammer twice and showed both, proudly exclaiming, “HAMMER” after each. Of course, his big pre-flop raise drove me off my limping hands, but it was worth it

LA Poker

Hope everybody has a good time in LA this coming week. Most importantly, I’m hoping my 2% stake in AlCantHang pays off. I bought 2 shares in Al’s eBay auction. I’m confident that he’ll at least get more pictures of himself with other poker pros. Personally, I’m hoping Elix Powers is around and Al gets a picture with him.

Crypto NL Madness

I played at 5 different Crypto sites this weekend a cleared the bonus at all of them. whew Only InterPoker remains as that one requires raked hands. I played 50/1 NL ($100 max) all weekend. I was only down at one of them and the bonus more than covered it, so it was up all around. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to get to all of them this month, but it looks like it won’t be a problem now. I also think that it shows that I can play 1400 hands in 7 days if needed. Look for me at the Party 25NL tables in the coming week.

I have to admit, one of the things I like about no limit is seeing things like:

Seat 1: chrisdhal (button) showed [5c Ac] and won ($175) with A Flush, Ace high

At least that guy had the K high flush. Later on I got:

Seat 7: chrisdhal (big blind) showed [Ac 6c] and won ($125.50) with A Flush, Ace high

Just for reference, the board showed 4 clubs. What did the other guy have? You know, the one that raised my $25 bet and went all in. A♥2♦ That’s right, he raised a $25 bet on the river with a pair of deuces. Without a club. And you think this type of play only happens on Party…

(Sorry Felicia, that’s as close to a hand history that I’ll get.)

Suffice it to say I made out pretty well this weekend. Add on the approximately $250 in bonuses and it was a mighty fine weekend.

Things are starting to come a little easier now, but I still have a ton to learn. No limit a much different game than limit. I still think I probably lay down too many hands facing big bets when I may have the odds to do make the call. I am, however, getting better at throwing out a big bet compared to just last week. I’ve still got a lot of work to do there too. This was made obvious while watching Pauly the other night. Granted, maybe he was just “slumming” so it didn’t matter, but he made a couple of calls/bets that I never would have thought about. I don’t get too fancy or anything, especially pre-flop. Post flop I always bet made hands unless the hand will most likely still be the nuts at the end.

I’m having fun playing no limit. It fits one side of my personality: patience. I can sit there and fold forever before finding a decent hand to play. It doesn’t bother me to do that, I’m not that much of an action junkie. Of course, when things get wild, the heart starts pumping. I do a pretty good job of not being lured into playing marginal hands. Now I just need to work on making the right calls even when I don’t “feel” like it.

Fossilman vs. Sheriff Fatman

Friday night’s heads up match between KOTZ champ Sheriff Fatman and 2004 WSOP World Champ Greg Raymer was short and sweet. It lasted all of 17 hands, which is about twice as long as the heads up match between Raymer and David Williams during the WSOP finals.

How did Raymer win? I think he just got done watching “Tilt”. Well, plus he’s a world champ and knows how to flop the nuts. In other words, just like The Matador he wielded the mighty 64o. This is the new hammer.

The final hand had Sheriff holding TPTK, but is out chipped about 3:1. Small bet on the flop of 239 and when the turn brings the 5 Fossilman has the nuts. Sheriff leads out and Fossilman raises 3x the bet. Sheriff goes over the top all in and of course is called. Basically, if you looked away for a bit you missed it. It was still pretty cool that Raymer took the time to do this.

Lack of Updates

So I meet up with Jason at lunch Thursday and he asks me why I haven’t updated my blog lately. Then he calls me tonight about something else and then at the end he asks if I’m playing poker yet. When I reply that I’m not quite yet playing poker, he then informs me that since I’m not playing, I should update this here blog. In reality I’ve had a lot of real work (see bottom section) to do and I mostly blog in the morning so I just haven’t had time to do it. Anyway, I’m sure the other 3 of you were wondering the same thing, so here we go…

I’ve continued to play no limit exclusively. By the “money measure”, I’m doing fine, I’m losing less at NL than I did at limit, so that’s good Actually, I’m coming out ahead so far, although I lost about $20 clearing the 1400 hands at Empire (a couple brutal suckouts when we got all in killed me). By “losing” I mean my play was a bit down, I didn’t lose the bonus, so a net of +$180 is now sitting in Neteller. I started on the Cryptos now, but I see Party has another bonus out. 1400 hands in 7, count them, 7, days. Yikes. I’m not sure I can do that, but I have a few days to decide if I want to give it a go.

Despite a couple of major suckouts, you know, from the “I play any Ace” or “I play any sooted” crowd (to raises even), I feel my NL game is improving. I’m starting to see that there are times to over bet the pot as well as some other basic strategies. It’s definitely a different game, and I think I like it better than limit, at least for now I’ve still got a ton to learn in regards to NL, but it’s coming. Some of the learning, and confusion, comes from playing at different sites.

NL At Other Sites

As most of you know by now, I have a tendency to play about 30 different sites during the month going after bonuses. Of course, this really means that I play on 2 major networks, Crypto and Party, so in reality I’m playing a lot at the same tables. One thing that is interesting to me is the default buy in at the different sites. While playing limit, I didn’t really see a big difference when buying into a 1/2 table for $50 at Party or for $40 at Crypto (note, those are the defaults, you can adjust them up or down). In the end, it didn’t really matter much.

In no limit, however, the buy in is much more important. At Party, the default is much lower than the other sites I’ve played on, 50x the big blind. At both Crypto and Prima sites the max buy in is 100x the big blind. This makes for very different play. I’m assuming that the 100x the big blind is more of a “deep stack” no limit game (although there is still a capped buy in). The smaller games sometimes get to be all in fests. By that I mean people pushing all in for $15 pre-flop in order to win 75 cents. While ridiculous, this is a quick way to get a few free dollars. It’s frustrating playing against that, but fortunately I caught a guy doing it the other day (he had done it about 10 times in 3 orbits) when I saw aces, I had him covered and busted him. You don’t see this happening at the bigger stack games.

That’s not to say the play is any better though. There is plenty of bad play at the deeper games, they are, after all, just 50/1 games. Trust me, there’s plenty of bad play at this level.

Playing the deeper games is somewhat intimidating at first. Playing at a 50/1 NL table and having a 3 way pot on the river and wanting to bet the pot can be a $50 bet or more. Then you may be facing a raise and then what? Weak/tight Chris doesn’t like that situation. Tight/aggressive Chris, however, realizes that most other people don’t like that either and uses that to his advantage. I admittedly don’t do it as often as I would like, but I’m getting better. TAG Chris is still learning to be more assertive, but it’s coming.

Then of course there are the times when you flop the nuts and can’t figure out why one, much less two, people keep calling (and in one case, raising) your bets. I mean, on a non-straight flush, non-paired board that flopped all one suit, facing an aggressive bettor (me, who happens to hold the A9 of that suit), what makes you think your raise is going to do anything but make me more money? That’s OK, those are the people you want to be playing against, and thankfully there are plenty of them at every site. EVERY site.

I must say that I like the deeper games better, despite (or maybe because of) the bigger betting. The fact that you can use some betting strategy makes it more fun and maybe more “real”. The Party NL games, while profitable, seem like they’re more of a crap shoot. It helps once you get a stack there as you can force people all in, which immediately puts them on the defensive, but other than that it seems less like a “real” no limit game. Of course, playing at the lower levels at Party sometimes seems like fake poker anyway, so I guess it fits right in.

I guess I’m just wondering if there is anything I should keep in mind about playing differently on the two types of games. Any insight from you NL vets would be appreciated. Basically I just play good hands and don’t screw around. I probably leave some money on the table by not trying to trap, but then again I don’t get rivered much either. I played at one table on Thursday night where for about an hour I won 20% of the hands I was dealt and never when to showdown. This table was pretty passive (obviously), so I took advantage of it and bet hard. It seems to be the “right” way to play, at least at the low levels.

Blogger Table

The other night I was kicking some ass at the Party 25NL. I had almost quadrupled up on one and was up a bit on another. Suddenly Iggy McBoobs sits down to my left. Ruh roh. Not that I was worried so much about his LAG ass (because this is a play table for him, he’d kill me in a real game, no doubts about that, none), but because this would most assuredly turn into the Blogger Table of Death soon. I’ve got $95 on the table and I wanted to lock it in, so I quickly looked at the waiting list and saw no less than 5 other bloggers in line. Damnit! Next thing I know the rail is alive and I’m stuck trying to protect my win. That’s a weak way to play and I proceeded to bleed off $40 of it. What made it even worse was the fact that none of the bloggers got any of it. I’d much rather have one of them get it than some yahoo who just happened to be sitting down at the table (who, of course, quickly become targets for the other bloggers).

I do enjoy playing there though. Well, actually I enjoy the banter more than the play. It’s a total LAG-fest (well, actually it’s been pretty tame while I’ve been there, but I can see it creeping up) which makes it interesting, but the table talk is great. It seems to get the non-bloggers on tilt a lot, which is good. So far I’ve escaped unscathed, but I know it’s only a matte of time before something bad happens.

Work

On a side note, the terror level at work has been downgraded from “major suckage” to “not so bad”. My longtime business partner has quit which pretty much sucks. We’ve worked together since 1991, started a business in 1996 and sold it 2001. I met Mrs. H through him (he was dating her roommate). We have a lot of history and I’m sad to see him go, both personally and professionally. I, of course, wish him the best and I’m sure he’ll succeed.

Since we were the only two developers in the organization that suddenly meant that I became more important. We have a number of home grown apps including a web portal for one of our major projects. Add in some lobbying from my friend and coworker Kent and suddenly I’m being moved back to a group that will allow me to do development. Now I just need to fanagle a raise out of this and I’ll be set. I haven’t totally ruled out going somewhere else, but I’m not as active about it right now. I know, I keep going back and forth on this, but things are better now and I do have a lot of flexibility and such, so that’s hard to give up.

Fossilman

Greg “Fossiman” Raymer (you know, the 2004 WSOP Main Event winner) will be playing Friday night at Stars. He will be playing in a special $100 NLHE Heads Up Sit and Go with the 2+2 King Of The Zoo (KOTZ) winner, Sheriff Fatman. This should be a fun event to watch. It’s at 9PM Eastern time at PokerStars.