Chris Halverson’s Blog

I’ve had a terrible run in the SNGs lately. I’ve read some things about running bad in them and needing a suficient bankroll to handle 10-15 without placing in the money. Thankfully it hasn’t hit that bad yet, but my ITM% and, more importantly, my ROI has plummeted over the last week. On Monday I played in 5 ($20+2) and was ITM in 3 (2nd and 3rd), which basically meant that I played for free minus the fees.

The flip side is that I played at bit more Crypto NL at InterPoker to finish January’s bonus. I was up $30, cleared that bonus ($90) and got one set of pocket kings which gets me another $10 bonus for their President’s Day bonus. Even better was that my cowboys held up and I was called all the way down for a big pot.

I’m not exactly sure what’s happening with my SNGs lately. I think what is happening is that I’m not pushing things as much. It hit me during the last couple that I played on Monday and I adjusted. While I bubbled in one, the last one I played in went much better. I think I sometimes get too much in “auto-pilot” mode and don’t play as well as I can.

My ring game seems to be going OK too. I think I’ve been a bit too weak there too though. I really think I’m letting myself get pushed off hands too often to smallish bets/raises. It’s something that I’m becoming more aware of and am going to work to fix that leak.

Saturday Night

As planned, Mrs. H and I went to our favorite restaurant, Forepaugh’s, on Saturday night. To make it even better, thanks to Jason, we had a gift certificate that covered exactly half of our bill. We decided to wing it and not make a reservation and we had to wait about 15 minutes for a table. This allowed us the opportunity to have a pre-dinner scotch in the bar. I chose the Macallan 12 for a slight change of pace. Mrs. H went for the Lagavulin 16. This is an incredibly smooth and wonderful Scotch, but at $10 a drink she decided on the Macallan for the second round. While they had my favorite, Oban, I tend to go for something different while out figuring I can have the Oban at home at anytime.

Thankfully they had their signature dish, Beef Wellington, available that night. We ordered some escargot as an appetizer and both of us ordered the Wellington as our entree. Unfortunately, I got the butt end of the roast and it was very tough. The wife’s, however, was perfect (which I had for dinner on Sunday night, and it’s still very good reheated).

As a rule, I don’t generally have dessert, but I just cannot pass up their English trifle. Wonderful. (Opps, I was channeling Richard Brodie there…)

What this all means is that I didn’t play one hand of poker on Saturday. I did, however, learn a lot about Excel UserForms and VBA. Oh joy.

Dinner night, howver, was very +EV. Highly recommended.

ITM On Sunday

While watching my favorite NASCAR driver, Jeff Gordon, win the Daytona 500 over Dale, Jr., I played in a couple SNGs and finally got in the money with a win. The games were really tight in the afternoon and I didn’t adjust too well. Well, part of it was that I wasn’t paying that much attention, after all, racing started again (only 2 weeks to Formula 1!!), and I was kind of distracted. The last few laps were great.

Either way, my spreadsheet’s “ITM/day” column now shows something for every day. Woo hoo!

I also played a little NL and ended the night up 10BB (is that even how you measure NL games?). Not a lot, but at least it’s in the right direction.

Later in the night I played 3 more SNGs and basically sucked. I played one badly, one I got sucked out on the bubble, one I got zero cards and basically got blinded away.

HST Is Dead

Hunter S. Thompson killed himself on Sunday. Sad day. News story.

Here’s a link to his ESPN Page 2 archive. Of course, he is best known for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

I broke my dry spell of no ITM finishes in SNGs on a Friday. Of course, before last night my sample size was small.

As in “4″.

Therefore, it wasn’t like I had played a ton of them and just sucked. On Friday I played 4 more and finally got in the money.

Once.

Hmm…OK, so it wasn’t stellar but now the only ITM-less days are Sunday (sample size of 3). Guess what I’ll be doing Sunday during the Daytona 500?

I also played some more NL on Crypto and at the 50NL on Party. At Crypto I went up big early, but ended the night $5 down.

I had to end the night because my Internet went down for about 10 mins and timed me out of my tables. I also wanted some more time to work on my spreadsheet (more on that in the future, some of you may actually want this as an addition to, not a replacement for, Poker Tracker).

I was being sweated a bit on my Party table and was up about $15 when I was dealt Aces in the BB. There were 4 limpers and I raised it to $5 and everybody called. Woo hoo! Cut to the river and there’s $60 in the pot and I’ve got $35 left. The Villan has me covered by a bit when the 3rd spade hits the board. I’m a bit nervous of the flush, but push anyway thinking my aces are good. Villan takes almost all his time and finally folds. I don’t show.

He then berates me for getting lucky with my flush and next time he’s going to “give it to me in the ass”. Ok I’ve more than doubled up and I only get to play about 4 more hands with him when my connection dies. Damn, I figured he’d be on tilt and out to get me if we got heads up. All I’d have to do is wait for some good hands and suck him in.

Maybe next time.

Not sure if I’ll get much time to play tonight. The tenative plans are for Mrs. H and I to go out (!) for a belated Valentines Day dinner and movie.

Live At The Bike

I watched a bit of Live at the Bike on Thursday night and it was pretty entertaining. The game was 400/800 Limit. Some of the big players:

Ted Forrest (multiple WSOP champ)
Jerry Buss (owner of the LA Lakers)
Chad Brown (Ultimate Poker Challenge host)
Toto Leonidas
Tom Franklin
Tuan Lee (WPT Foxwoods 2004 winner)

One very cool thing was catching Scotty Ngyuen in the guest commentator spot. He was there for at least 30 minutes and was great to listen to. He was the classic “Scotty” that you see on TV. Baby this, Scotty that. It was fun and he actually offered some good commentary.

Chad Brown took a huge beat when he had rockets. He limped in and Ted Forrest limped in with 92o. It ends up that Ted catches trips and busts Chad.

Chad then says, “Ted, since you won, can I borrow a buyin?” Ted then throws two $5K chips over to him and says, “If I keep winning like this I’ll come out the big winner but end up broke”.

Over the next 30 minutes, Chad dropped that $10 and got up for the night, $20K poorer.

There was at least $100K on the table and they were only playing 8 handed (by design).

Let’s just say that these guys are action junkies. It’s amazing the crap hands that a lot of these guys play. Unreal.

I’m really enjoying this broadcast. If you haven’t watched it, you should give it try, it’s actually pretty good and even more interesting since it’s real money, not tournament dollars.

My Poker

Yeah, so about my playing on Thursday…

It’s never a good sign when you put your own play after something else.

I played 4 SNGs, two 2nd place, two bubbles. Not too bad, but I kinda screwed up the last one. I should have been ITM, but made a terrible play with four left and crippled myself.

I aso think I played at the slowest NL table ever at Crypto. I played for 2.5 hours and only got 120 hands. Despite this, I lost a buyin. Again. Once again, I was ahead when the money was put in (on the flop), but was beat on the turn. I still had outs on the river, but they didn’t come and I left.

While playing the last SNG, I pulled up a 50NL game at Party. I was +$30 on that table before leaving, so at least the night ended on a good note (despite bubbling in the SNG). Results wise, I was still down for the night, though.

I think I played well though. I was holding even at the Crypto table throughout the night. The hand that killed me had 4 people all in. I was last to call, and the pot was huge by this point ($250+), so calling with the Hiltons on a small uncoordinated board seemed like a good idea at the time. In the end, I was the 2nd best hand, so I still think it was probably right. The winner had pocket fours and raised $70 on the flop. It’s amazing what people do at the NL tables. Just freaking amazing.

I’m hoping Friday night will be a replay of last Friday where I won $200+. According to my spreadsheet, I have yet to place in the money in a SNG on a Friday, so I’m hoping to change that too.

Poker Update

It appears that there is a spate of people blowing their rolls lately. It’s kind of humbling and does make you think about things a bit. My little downturn that I’m having is nothing compared to blowing a major portion of a roll, so I don’t feel so bad now. It also makes me feel better about my basically break even play.

I didn’t play any ring games on Tuesday, which is probably good because on Monday I took a dive. I was playing NL at a Crypto site and blew through 40BB before I called it a night. I couldn’t hit a flop to save my life.

Tuesday night I had to work again, so I snuck in 2 SNGs before starting that and 2 after finishing working. I was 50% ITM in those (3/5/5/2), but should have won the last one. I was a 3:1 chip leader when we got heads up and I totally blew it. The Villain was actually in one of my earlier SNGs, so I had some info on him. He was very aggressive, and I didn’t play back. I went into reaction mode, which is terrible when heads up. All I can say is that I was tired and actually in the back of my mind wanted to just finish. I had played well until then though, biding my time and getting paid off when I got cards.

I hope to have more time to play “for real” tonight, but I may have to do some more work. Ug.

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