Chris Halverson’s Blog

Poker

Checking my email on Friday I noticed an email from Interpoker offering a weekend only $30 bonus. No deposit required, just put in the code and play 300 raked hands. While not all that great, they allow the played hands to count for that bonus and the monthly bonus. Clearing that will clear almost half of this month’s bonus. What’s even better is that I hadn’t started this month’s bonus yet, so it was all gravy.

I played mostly 6max this time. What astounded me was that I was still able to get distracted (NASCAR had a night race this week) while 3 tabling 6max NL tables. While not a great night, I did come out ahead I just got sucked out on the river on a $200 pot, so ended down, but I go an extra $30 in bonus. I’ve really got to start paying attention. The thing is, like I said the other day, at the level I’m playing, you don’t really need to pay too much attention. ABC poker is pretty much all that is needed.

WPBT Satellite

Despite making a public call for registrations, due to “real life”, I kind of spaced about the tournament. My email saved me again though. Borders sent me an email coupon for 25% off any one item. I jump onto their website and notice that the closest store to me has “Harrington on Hold ‘Em” in stock. Good timing, after all, the subtitle is: “Expert Strategy for No Limit Tournaments”, and guess what? I’m going to be in an NL tournament!

You guys better watch out and be ready to root for me in WSOP Event #2. I have, after all, read the back cover of said book. I’ve learned things like using the word “cognoscenti” on a poker book seems a little over the top. I’ve also learned that nobody has the guts to tell Dan that his cap bill needs a little bending.

Anyway…good luck to everybody on Sunday night. I’ve got about zero chance, but I figure I’m willing to donate $30 to send on of “us” to the tourney.

Pete (from Pete’s tourney) is working to setup a regular home game and the first installment was on Wednesday night. It was setup as a $50 buyin NLHE cash game with 0.25/0.50 blinds. There is some interest in a bigger game in the future (100-200 buyin NLHE), but since this was the first one, all that was spread was the lower buyin game.

There was an interesting group of people that were at the game. There was a total of about 18 people playing on 3 tables. There was some that really knew what they were doing, and some that have watched too much TV. One guy even had sunglasses.

We got started at 6:30 and drew cards for tables and seats. I, of course, got seated to Al’s right. Drac showed up about an hour into it and sat to his left. Great, I’ve got people who I know can play sitting to my left. That’s good though because I’ve got somebody to talk to. Our table is made up of a couple good players as well as a couple younger guys.

Things start out slow for me, unlike Al who got T7o three hands in a row and won twice including flopping a straight. He got up big early. I didn’t really get much for a while, and if I had a limping hand, I usually missed the flop.

I basically played away until I had to bail out of a hand on the river after putting a fair amount of my stack in the middle on a draw that didn’t hit. I rebought back up to $50 and shortly thereafter the hand of the night came up.

I’m in the cutoff and have AhKh. Three limpers to me and I raise to $1.50. The blinds fold (IIRC, but doesn’t matter), the other two guys call. Flop comes Jc6c3c. Smallish bet, call and I bail. Turn is either a 6 or 3. Bet, raise, call. River is a fourth club. Bet, raise, call. The cards are flipped over.

Nobody has a club.

MP has A7o (or something similar).

LP has 63s for the full house.

Al, Drac and I all steal glances at each other and just stare in disbelief at what just happened.

I then lost a hand to MP guy when he called a pre-flop raise with A8o.

Basically, some of these guys epitomized the “any two will do” and “but they were sooooted”. Granted, for some of them, a $50 buyin was nothing and they were having fun. Even so, some of the play was absolutely terrible. Oh, and sunglasses are ridiculous at a friendly game like this.

So, there’s not a lot of my play here, but then again I didn’t get many cards or much action when I did. I got KK three times but got no action any time. I had QQ once and got a little from Al, but he bailed on the turn when I priced him out of his draw. I had a good time, and I definitely want to go back again. It was one of those type of games where you would generally get paid off if you had a good hand. It was definitely a game where somebody with some skill could do well in.

It was my first time playing a NL cash game, and it was a bit different. Playing in a tourney where the chips aren’t “real” and playing online with virtual chips is quite different than knowing that the $25 you’re betting is “real” money. I enjoyed it though and it was nice to have a cash game to play in for a change. Tourneys aren’t really my forte (not that I’m a great cash game player), and I prefer cash games. It was a nice friendly game, although with so many people from varied groups it was a little tough to socialize, although our table had a decent time. I’m sure if the same group keeps showing up things will become more comfortable.

I just swung by Poker Stars and was #49 to sign up for the WPBT WSOP satellite. One more and we’ve got it made and Otis doesn’t have to pony up $30.

Who will be #50?

First off, I would like to thank everybody for the kind words regarding our cat’s death. I showed my wife (she knows I do this, but generally doesn’t care about the finer points of topping off in an NL game) and she was very touched by all of your kindness. She and I both thank all of you you expressed your condolences.

I finally got a chance to play some poker again on Tuesday night, so I pulled up a virtual chair at a couple of $100 buyin NL tables at one of my favorite sites and started playing. It was one of those nights that you like to have, the most I was down was $2.50. The tables were kind of tight, which meant that I had more stealing opportunities. I won quite a few small pots by making pre-flop raises or strong flop bets. Not a way to make a fast buck, but hey, a pot is a pot and any money is good money (maybe if I say “pot” more my Google hits will increase, pot, pot, pot).

I got cowboys 3 times either UTG or UTG+1, raised, and only got the blinds. You can see why some people would be tempted to limp or min-raise with aces or kings. Of course, then we’d have to hear some lame bad beat story about how their aces got cracked, and I hate bad beat stories…

The most satisfying hand of the night was when I got jacks in UTG+1. I raised it to $3 (I had about $120 at this point) and got two callers. One guy was one of those short stack, go all in all the time players. He had $50 at the start of this hand. Flop came down AJx rainbow and I check. He pushed for about $45 into a $5ish pot. I just called, hoping against hope to keep the other guy in, but of course he folds to the ridiculous overbet. He had Ax and MHIG. A couple other guys at the table said appreciated somebody finally calling and beating him.

Personally, that type of play kind of bugs me. Short stack no limit basically means push or fold post-flop, you just don’t have enough of a stack to do much else. At these lower level NL games, people will get into a push mode and do it all the time pre-flop or on the flop. The problem is that depending on the opponent’s stack size (say up to half of a max buyin), you still need a hand to make the call, even if you think he’s bluffing at it.

Anyway, my Internet connection mysteriously died for a bit after about 90 minutes of play. I ended the night +$140, which basically wiped out my losses from last week. What made it even more sweet was that I was, once again, playing in a fairly distracted manner. The Amazing Race and The Shield were on and were fighting for my attention. Thankfully at the 100NL you can do this.

Unfortunately, I don’t always feel like I’m playing poker. No, I don’t always win, but then again if I lose, I don’t lose much. Maybe moving up to the 200 level would make me pay attention. The average pots there are much bigger than I’m used to, and I’m pretty conservative, so I think it would force me to pay more attention. It appears that I’ll have to brush up on my short handed game though as there are many more 6max games available at the 200 level than full ring (both at Party and Crypto). I think I’m going to switch to 6max 100NL for a bit and see how that works out for me. Playing the shorthanded games would also make bonus clearing go faster. I’ll just need to turn up the aggression. I’ll keep you updated…

Friday night I’m watching TV with Mrs. H and watching one of our cats, Cleo, chase a bug around the living room. She was jumping around the furniture, running around and everything.

Saturday night, she could hardly stand up.

Sunday morning, she died in my wife’s arms.

Cleo had hyperthyroidism and had to take a pill to keep it in control. It couldn’t cure it, but just kept it at bay a bit. She was fairly old, around 15, and the disease finally caught up to her. One of the things that can happen is kidney failure. It would appear that something catasrtrophic happened overnight on Friday, basically something in her body shut down.

My wife had Cleo for longer than she’s known me. It hit her very hard. I had spent most of Saturday doing housework, so I hadn’t really noticed that Cleo was acting strange (she would tend to stay out of the way a lot anyway), so I hadn’t really thought much about it until late in the night. My wife went out to the opera with her mom that night and it didn’t really enter my mind until she got back and asked about Cleo.

Cleo could barely walk, she was stumbling around. She didn’t want to be close to people. She would lay on the bed with us, but if you got too close or started petting her too much, she tried to move out of the way. Her fur was “odd” and wouldn’t go back to normal after petting her. Her eyes were totally dialated and cloudy and she looked distant. She responded to talking and petting, but was uncomfortable.

Finally my wife had to sleep. By this time Cleo had wandered into the other room. We woke up around 6:30AM Sunday and my wife went looking for Cleo. She found her in the living room curled up on the floor. My wife ran to her and said she was totally limp, but alive. Cleo let out a small meow and looked up at my wife as she started talking to her. A couple of minutes later she died in my wife’s arms.

Needless to say, no poker was played this weekend.