Chris Halverson’s Blog

Tivo

My Tivo screwed up last night and I missed “Lost”. I am pissed. At least it got “Alias”, which kicked ass.

This would have been a non-issue if my brother had used his head a little bit, but NO…He’s having a grage sale today (Thursday) and in his world, everybody revolves around him, so he calls me the night before saying he needs help moving things (he’s got another house that he rents out and my parents needed some big things moved). I told him I was busy, but could help a little. He said he needed 2-3 hours.

Huh?

I said I could help for an hour as I had homework to finish. Anyway, I went over there at 6:45 (Central) and before I left I made sure that Tivo was setup correctly. When I came back (oh, and it was raining) 90 minutes later, I checked Tivo and noticed it hadn’t recorded. I checked the log and it said some BS about the video signal not being available.

Effing A.

Now I totally blame this on the stupid TV stations here, becuase I have to blame it on somebody. Virtually throughout the whole 2 hour episode of Alias, we had approximately 25% of the screen taken up by weather notifications. Here in Minnesota, we make a point of disrupting TV for bad weather 300 miles away. Drives me crazy.

Now I’ve got to download Lost and watch it before next week’s finale. To make that worse, my main torrent site is gone

Update: Downloading as we speak, here’s hoping it’s a good rip.

BTW, is it weird to have an update before I actually post?

April Rocks

Fellow Gourds fan April went to ANOTHER concert last night and picked something up for me. Nice! I, of course, missed their last show here and have been paying for it ever since. Hank not only turned on the “make Chris lose” bit at Full Tilt, but he cranked it up to 11 since I missed the Gourds concert.

Thanks April!

Poker

Not much going on here, still plugging away a bit. NL game coming along nicely, at least for the levels I’m playing at (100 and 200 buyins). I’ve got used to the betting at the 200 now, so throwing out a $75 bet doesn’t freak me out anymore, so that’s good. Had a bad night the other night, but made it back last night.

On a related note, I see that Full Tilt has more players online than the Crypto sites. Wow. See recent postings about why I’m still playing on Crypto though

I think it’s a competition to see who’s waiting list implementation sucks more though. At Full Tilt you have to join on a per table basis. At Crypto, once you’re seated, you cannot join a “general” list (such as “200NL with greater than 8 players”). Is a waiting list that hard to implement? Geez…

Now with 60% poker content!

Checking Down Quads

I decided to play a bit on Full Tilt to see if I could, just maybe, post even a small win (short answer: no, Hank hasn’t turned off the “make chrisdhal lose” flag yet) when I saw the weirdest hand. Due to the lack of hand histories at FTP (and evidently once you logoff you cannot find out past hands, ug!), I’ll have to recall from memory, and given my history at this, you may just want to move on…I wasn’t involved in it, because I was playing an Empire table too. Don’t worry, it’ll be short because I didn’t see anything until the river.

Board comes down QdTdAxXxAd. Three people left in the pot. It’s checked around on the river.

SB turns over KdJd for a Royal Flush.

MP mucked (or I missed), but had a straight I think.

Button turned over AA for quad aces.

SB claims his connection dropped on the flop and he couldn’t bet when he got reconnected. Button never explained why she didn’t bet her quads, but she was happy that she didn’t.

Now, maybe it’s just me, but I feel that if you’ve got quad aces and are scared of the royal, you probably shouldn’t be playing poker. How often is a straight flush going to happen? All I know is that I would have stacked off here.

Strange.

WPBT

I’ve been absent from the last two satellite tourneys and Sunday’s was on purpose. Basically, my MTT game, well, pretty much sucks. Now, I’ll play in the regular ones where I can potentially win some money. Playing in one to win entry into another MTT just doesn’t make sense for my game. That basically explains why I haven’t bothered to play in the last couple tournaments.

Empire

Got my cash out into Neteller. Tried logging into Empire and it’s still good. Woo hoo! More bonus possibilities!

Survivor

Well, I spaced on the Survivor finale on Sunday night. I was, however, treated to an awesome Family Guy and a decent American Dad episode. I hear that Tom won by winning immunity and Ian basically screwed himself over. There was no way Jenn was going to win against Tom, so once it got down to the two of them it was probably an easy decision. My intrepid reporter (my mom) said that they didn’t reveal the total votes (but she didn’t watch the reunion show), but said it appeared to be a blowout.

24

If you don’t watch 24, you’re missing out big time. This season has been great. The last couple of episodes have been thrilling. That scene where they went into the Chinese Consulate? Amazing. Of course, there’s only a couple of episodes left, and you kind of need to see the first 20 or so, but MAN! It’s been a great season. I don’t care if it’s totally fake (trust me, much of the “Internet” and computer stuff is very unrealistic, “Send me the video to TCP port 14!”), it is, after all, a TV show. It’s a great drama and I love it.

While waiting for paint to dry on Saturday afternoon, I was able to finish up my Empire bonus. Overall I was on the short side of variance and lost some. Such is life and whatever.

I am, however, testing the Empire Account Closing Conspiracy (TM).

I was able to play my 1000th hand UTG. I immediately got up, ensured the bonus was in my account, and cashed out entirely.

Now, if that doesn’t scream “bonus chaser”, I don’t know what does.

While writing this, I checked my email and got:

Your cash out request received on 14-MAY-05 … has been approved and has already begun processing.

Now we’ll see if I get locked out. If not, something is strange in their algorithm to determine who is getting picked.

Why am I testing fate? I don’t know. I don’t get rakeback there, and I do not yet have an account on EuroBet, so I’ve still got options. Plus I’ve got my Party account, so it’s not like I’ll be shutout or anything. Plus, there are just as good, if not better, games at other sites.

I’ll keep you updated (gee, thanks).

Poker

Here’s been my NL strategy over the last couple of days at the Empire 200NL:

Get to see a cheap flop. Flop a good hand and lead off betting. Get called down or call a min raise on every street. Make a great hand, say nut flush, on the river. Bet on the river and then call a big raise. Lose to flopped quads or full house.

At least I haven’t had bad beats the last couple of days, I’ve just been behind the whole way. Then to make it better, I bet into them. Woo hoo! Good times.

Amazing Race

OK, I know I should just let it go, but WTF was the deal with the Amazing Race finale? I seriously have to believe that CBS was involved in the fiasco at the airport which let Euchena/Joyce catch up. Rob and Amber would have been a couple hours ahead and would have easily won despite getting lost in Little Havana.

Rob and Amber deserved to win that thing. They played the game better than anybody ever has and will change the way it’s played in the future, just like they did for Survivor. You may not like them, but they played the game better, and that’s the whole point of it.

OK, I’ll try to let it go now, but man, it still pisses me off.

Oh, and Survivor kinda sucks this time around. I don’t really have anybody to root for now that Stephanie is gone. The sad thing? I just can’t keep from watching…

Cirque Du Soleil

I finally booked my Cirque tickets. The Mrs. and I will be at beautiful Bellagio on Thursday night, June 2, to see the early “O” show. We can’t wait. In my traditional vacation planning, I waited until late and the “best availalbe” seats were “limited view” (Level O, Section 205, Row P, Seat 1-2). The auditorium was built for it, so they can’t be too bad, right?

I also see they’re coming to Minneapolis in September, I may have to check that out too.

I didn’t play in the WPBT WSOP satellite on Wednesday. It’s the first official bloggers tourney that I’ve missed. Ever. I even hit all of Felicia’s tourneys on Planet except one. Anyway, I thought I may have something going on and it did come up, so I wasn’t able to play.

Just reading the first few reports I have to say that I haven’t seen so much hatred toward a site since the ones at Pacific. I haven’t signed up at Noble yet, despite Iggy’s big bonus. Doesn’t sound like I’m missing much software wise. I can put up with crappy software if the games are good though.

Anyway…

Technically I was home and able to play, but at about 8:15 (Central) I had to leave for about 30 minutes, so it’s good that I didn’t start. What really pisses me off was that I was killing an Empire 200NL table at the time. I got quads again (that’s 3 in two days plus a straight flush which paid me off big time) and was to the left of a maniac who was sure to bet so I could hide big hands. I had doubled up in about 30 minutes. Good times.

Then I came back and I hadn’t been removed from the table yet, so I was hoping the table was still good. It was, but my cards suddenly turned bad. I played that table during CSI:NY and then opened up table #2.

The carnage followed me there.

I lost a ton when I made the nut flush but ran into slowplayed quads (which allowed me to catch my flush). Yeah, I was scared of the full house possibility, but not quads. Ug.

Anyway, I basically lost all of my winnings from last night. I’m 40% done with the Empire bonus (that’s 400 raked hands for the math challened) and I’m a net of +$6. Woo hoo!

What is good though is that I’m comfortable at this level (200NL) now. It took a few sessions, most of them losing ones (albeit smallish losses), before I was comfortable with the bet sizes and such. Now it’s no big deal which allows me to play better. I don’t feel like I’m being outplayed. At least not much anyway. My tightish play probably costs me some pots though.

I’ve also noticed that I need to get more aggressive. Big surprise there, huh? If I can open the betting, I tend to be more aggressive. If I have to call a bet, I tend to just call instead of raising like I sometimes should. I don’t feel outplayed though, so that’s good. I’d really like to get a couple big wins before Vegas though.

3 weeks. Oh boy…

I may quickly hit up a couple casinos and whore them to get a couple hundred more before the trip. I need ones with fast cashouts where I can play blackjack. Gotta go reasearch a bit.

Oh man, I can’t wait…