Chris Halverson’s Blog

Poker Tracker Guide

(Yes, this is even more important than anything else I have to say, and no, I don’t get anything out of it.)

If you use Poker Tracker at all, and if you don’t you are costing yourself money, you must go get Hank and Iggy’s book. It is good stuff and I learned a lot from it. It’s only $20. At 50/1 it is only 20BB and you will get more than that out of it. If you play higher, then it won’t even take that long and I’ll wager that you will still learn things from it. Playing higher does not necessarily mean that you play smarter. You want to play smarter, get the book.

Go get it here. You can thank them later.

Tourneys: Live vs. Online

I have to say that my betting in live tourneys is particularly bad. This was made painfully obvious by Drac shooting me weird glances all night during the tourney on Friday. I am so used to playing online where the pot total and my chip total are staring me in the face.

When playing live I’ve got four different colors of chips to worry about, a pot that’s all mixed together, lots of noise and other distractions.

Oh, and usually there is alcohol involved.

A prime example is the pocket 8s hand from the tourney. The pot was about T500 when Al bet T500 and I min raised to T1000. Besides the fact that min raises make baby Jesus cry, I had left myself with only about T200. WTF? Obviously I was pot commited, so why not go all the way? I think my reasoning was that I wanted a call. But leave just T300 behind? If anything that’s screaming, “I’ve got a monster hand, raise me all in!” instead of, “I have a semi-strong hand (or bluff) and don’t want a call”.

Big hole. Must fix. I’m guessing I’m not the only one who has this issue though.

Slow Weekend

As I thought, I really didn’t play much poker this weekend. I didn’t play at all on Saturday, and only two SNGs on Sunday. I was sweated by Drizz on both of them, and proceeded to play fairly poorly in both. The first one I got zero cards. The second gave me opportunities, but every time I made a raise pre-flop, everybody folded so I was not able to take advantage of the big cards. Of course, what this should have told me was that I could have stolen a lot more, but I was busy watching NASCAR and doing some other stuff, so I didn’t catch it until it was too late.

I have yet to even start the new Party bonus. Don’t worry though, I will be there…

Why do I suddenly hear a stampede of people running to the 25NL tables?

Ultimate Poker Challenge

The finals for the Ultimate Poker Challenge were shown over the weekend and it had a great final table. The big names included Scotty Nguyen, Jeff Shulman, “Minneapolis” Jim Meehan, James Van Alstyne, and David Plastik. Doyle and Todd Brunson were co-hosts this week.

I love to watch Minneapolis Jim. He always seems half in the bag, and there are many people who say that it is true. Doyle even mentioned something to the fact that it appeared that he “had a few already”. He’s a hoot to watch though, he just talks and talks and he makes very strange bets. He doubled up twice very early in the game and during one of the hands he said “Fuck” and got a penalty. This is after he stood up for about a minute and somebody called the clock on him. He went into the tank and let it rip. I don’t think he took any extra time than he normally does, so I’m guessing they edited some time out. He plead his case to Matt Savage and the rest of the table, but Matt (thankfully) held firm and dealt him out for 20 minutes. Evidently nothing happened during those 20 minutes because the next hand they showed was one with Mpls Jim in it and they commented that he was back. I love to watch him though. Anyway, it was pretty entertaining to watch, despite Scotty going out early.

As I was driving down Highway 100 on my way to Pete’s house on Friday night, I told myself I was going to: a) have fun; b) actually try to play well.

Going .500 isn’t all bad, right?

Pete is a friend of Drac and is putting on two tournaments over Friday and Saturday night. I had planned on only going to the Saturday one, but then Mrs. H reminded me that we had a wedding to go to on Saturday. This then required renegotiation and I was able to head out on Friday.

There were 38 people who showed up for the $20 buyin, unlimited rebuy and $10 addon tournament. We were spread across 5 tables throughout Pete’s house. It was crowded, but Pete had bought a keg, so people were happy.

I’m there about 10 minutes and recognize a guy from the Minneapolis Club tourney and start talking to him. He’s a headhunter and after some smalltalk he sees that I’m not drinking anything and asks if I wanted a beer. I told him I’m more of a scotch drinker and his eyes light up. He had secreted in a bottle of Macallan 18, hidden in a tube that reflected a much lesser scotch. He went and poured me one and offered me access to it all night. OK, my plan of not drinking has suddenly gone out the window.

Chalk one up for “fun”. Of course, this has the direct effect of putting a ”-1” on the “play well” side of the equation.

Drac is the TD and starts yelling out table assignments. I draw table 1. Unfortunately that’s with Drac and Al. Shit. I know they know what they’re doing. Also at the table are two people from the Mpls Club tourney. One is an older guy who knows what he’s doing and is very friendly, the other is a guy about my age who played in the side game with me. I’m sandwhiched between them in the 2s.

My tournament can be boiled down to about 4 hands.

Hand 1 came in level two or three and I’m dealt aces. I am excited about finally getting something and try to act calm. I’ve collected a couple small pots along the way, but nothing to write home about. I decided to pop it to T200. This is way too much at this point in time, especially at our tight table. I basically spaced on what the blinds were because I was talking to the guy to my left and I was trying to look like it was no big deal. I didn’t get any callers, although the 1s took a lot of time before folding.

In retrospect, while I would have liked a caller, overbetting sometimes works well. People think you’re making a move an will call you with lesser hands. I still wish I had made a normal sized raise and seen a flop.

Hand 2 and I’m dealt pocket 8s. Al throws out a 3x raise and I am the only caller. The flop comes down AQ8 and I check raise Al. I do a dumb ass min raise which leaves me with only about T300. Drac gives me this weird look and I just roll my eyes because I knew it was a dumb raise. Obviously I should have pushed or smooth called, but leaving that little bit back was just dumb. Al thinks for a while and then folds.

Hand 3 has me in the big blind and am dealt cowboys. We’re after the break and have antes going on, so there is some decent money in the pot pre-flop. It also means that going all in is the correct play or a lot of people due to the size of the blinds. I’m trying to figure my raise when Drac goes all in. I have him covered and see there’s only one other person who may be in the pot so I just smooth call and the other guy thinks for a minute, then folds.

As soon as I say “call” Drac sighs and says, “He has one of two hands”. When the other guy folds he asks me, “A’s or K’s?”. I say, “K’s” as I flip them over. He flips over queens and I’m a huge favorite. Bad timing for him as the board doesn’t help anybody and I knock him out and almost double up.

Shortly after that I’m dealt AQo and raise in LP. The big blind calls. The flop brings Queen high, he checks and I push. He calls and flips over QJo. I’m feeling good about doubling up, at least until the river bings another Jack and I go home in approximately 25th place.

It was a well run tourney and Pete made a gracious host. It was very busy and things were kind of hectic, made more so by the fact that one of the tables was downstairs. Overall it was a good time and I did not have to rebuy, so that’s a good thing. I did the add on so my outlay was $30. I’ll definitely be looking forward to the next one.

I have a home game tourney to go to tonight (Friday), so I have been hitting the SNGs a bit more to prepare. Wednesday I was being sweated by Drac, who will be at the tourney, and went on to win. He said he was collecting note on me. Good luck with that, I suck, so it doesn’t matter what notes you have on me

I played better on Thursday night, although a played a couple fewer tourneys. I was ITM two-thirds of the time that night. I had some other work to do that night, so I wasn’t able to play as much as I would have like.

Due to the tournament on Friday, and a wedding on Saturday night, my online play this weekend will most likely be concentrated on Sunday. I’ll be at Party working off the bonus.

Poker IPOs

Very interesting article in Business Week about Party possibly floating an IPO. They figure that Party has a possible valuation of $4 billion. Billion. Wow.

They talk about Paradise and how much it has made SportingBook already. Paradise’s daily rake: $260,000. WOW!

Due to the fact that I am accumulating vacation faster than I can take it, I have been looking for a few 1 or 2 day excursions to take in order to burn some time. In fact, I had one all planned out already. I was going to head to Milwaukee for the Champ Car race and a little poker at Potowatami.

Those plans have been thrown out.

Why?

Because the date for that race is June 4.

In case you don’t know, CJ at Up For Poker has just announced the latest in the WPBT Live Las Vegas get togethers. See his announcement at Up for Poker.

I’ve already got the signoff from Mrs. H, and in fact, she’s interested in coming out too. It’s a go. I’m not missing this one.

Now I just have to start winning at poker to pay for it…

Slowrolling

Another night of some SNGs, another night of mediocre results. One for 5 in the money. At least I won it, so it was another night of playing for free (well, -$10 due to fees), which at least is better than losing money, but it still kinda sucks.

I played much better though. I pushed some of the edges a bit and while I didn’t get ITM much, I made some better plays which payed off. Unfortunately I went on some bad runs of cards. I did call, as opposed to raising, more than I should have though.

The worst part of the night was when some dumbass slow rolled me. I was in LP with AKs. EP min raised and had me covered 3:1 so I pushed my last T600 into the pot pre-flop. He used every last possible second to call. In fact, I think he disconnected and came back on. This was 45 minutes into the tourney and it hadn’t happened before. He then flips over AA. Almost everybody at the table bitched at him.

Oh well.

I played a little more NL ring too and ended the night up a bit there, so overall it was another night of small wins. I pushed it a bit more there too, trying to up the raising more than my normal amount. It’s just a mental thing to me, I know I should do it, but I just don’t do it as much as I should.

It’s a good thing I don’t do this for a living

SoCo

The other night while the Mrs. and I were having dinner I suggested she pick up some SoCo for home. It’s cheaper than the Scotch, and sometime you just want something a little different and/or not as expensive.

She came home with the 100 proof variety.

Of course, she’s not a “strong” alcohol drinker, so I asked her why she got that and she claimed there was a special or something and that it was cheaper. Well she poured herself some, when downstairs to work on her Second Life stuff and came back up 2 hours later with approximately half a sip out of the glass.

“Whoa, that’s strong”, is all she said.

I have a feeling I’ll be forced to drink this bottle myself.

Gee, what a shame…