Chris Halverson’s Blog

Now that PartyGaming has gone public, it’s owners are billionaires. See the story here.

Short summary: Each of the two main owners (husband and wife) will immediately make $370 million. Each. They both still own shares worth $2.7 billion. That’s “billion”. With a “B”.

Un-freaking-real.

The article goes on to say that Party makes a profit of $1000 per minute.

Wow.

OK, no other content. The 200NL games at the aforementioned site have been very rockish lately. I was able to pull in a $25 profit last night before getting bored out of my skull. I may go back to the 100NL because I think it will actually be more profitable. Now that I’m cutting back on the time I play, I have to look for what is more profitable and not just play higher because I can.

I roll into work this morning as normal only to find out that I needed to move again. See, we’re expanding into new office space and redecorating the old. I was moved a couple of weeks ago to a temporary place, and today they told me I needed to move again so they could put new cubes in the area I was in.

I felt like “Milton” in Office Space.

The guy who came by to tell me that I’d have to move was even holding a cup of coffee a la Lundberg. He even said it like, “Uh, Chris, we’re going to need you to pack up again.” It was kind of surreal.

So after being told that there was nowhere for me to sit yet, I said I was going to “work” from home. He said he didn’t care since he’s not my manager. My manager is 150 miles away (in Duluth for those who know the geography), so I packed up the laptop and headed home.

So here I sit, on my La-Z-Boy watching Star Trek: Deep Space 9 while utilizing my wireless. I’ll be here until Thursday. It’s going to be rough.

I didn’t play any poker over the weekend and it felt good.

I know most of you just can’t wait to hear me rant about NASCAR, so here it is: Why the hell can’t they figure out how to use local yellows on the road courses? I mean, come on, it’s not that difficult. F1, Champ Car, even “lowly” SCCA races use local yellows. Watching the race at Infineon (or whatever, Sears Point for those who care) yesterday was painful. “Debris in turn 8, FCY!” Geez…a full course yellow for a piece of debris? Unreal.

Last Friday Tivo recorded an episode of “Knight Rider” for me. I love the cheesiness of that show. This one was classic corny TV: It involved ninjas. Knight Rider and Ninjas. Does it get any better than that?

I may have to play some poker sometime this week, try those afternoon pound games on Crypto…

• Tao of Poker, for real-time tournament reporting and various nonsense including what promises to be a month-long drama involving the coked-up stripper-neighbors
• LasVegasVegas, the Poker Prof and FlipChip providing all sorts of in-depth coverage and lots of pictures
• PokerPlayer Newspaper

Charlie

I didn’t know him and only became aware of him lately, but my condolences go out to Spaceman on the loss of his friend. The poker community has really turned out in support and that’s great. StB probably said it best:

Go tell the people you love and care about (family, friends, your bartender) how much you love and care about them. You have all of your life to do so. Don’t let the time pass away.

Life is too short to drink cheap booze. Life is also too short to forget to tell someone you care about them.

Pauly

Well, my dreams of dropping some cash on something fun went by the wayside when Pauly busted out of the money yesterday. All I know is that he did better than I would have done. He got his money in with the best hand and was rivered. That’s poker, and he played it right IMHO. It was money well spent.

My Poker

I played a bit again last night and had another good night. I did something I don’t normally pay attention to: I excercised table selection.

Whoa.

See I tend to sit down at the first table I can get onto. I pull up Party and hit “join waitlist”, select “First 200NL table with 8 players” and wait. Sometimes it’s immediate, sometimes I have to wait. Either way, I take what I can get. Last night my table was terribly tight. After a couple of orbits I decided that it sucked and got on another one. Now, if I had been smart, I would have left the first one as I went on a tear on table #2, but lost $100 on table #1. I was still up a good amount for the night, so that’s really what’s important.

This is the first time in a long time that I actually decided that a table was “bad” and switched (well, pulled up another one). Maybe it’s because the tables at Party are not usually too bad, but most likely it’s because I suck and don’t worry about it too much.

I’ve also started to “play” more. I’m not playing such simple ABC poker as much. The big thing I’m doing is raising and re-raising more to find out where I stand. I know I should do that, and I did at the 100NL, but when I moved up I slowed down because suddenly I’m looking at $100 bets on the turn or something. That’s like real money! I know I need to think in terms of chips, percentages and such. I’m getting back there now at this level, but I took some time off and am not playing as much so I have to get back to that way of thinking.

Overall I feel I’m playing better, so that helps.

Empire Bonus

Where’s the outrage people?

Their newest bonus is 100% to $100, but with a 15x work rate. What’s up with that? People about boycotted InterPoker when they raised their WR a couple months ago and it’s still half as much as this Empire one.

Is it because people just say, “Well, I’d be playing at a Party skin anyway…”? Bah.

I may still do it, although I may have trouble clearing it in time, just to see if they label me a bonus chaser. I don’t play there unless I get a bonus and have dodged the bullet so far and now it’s kind of a perverse pleasure to take their money and not give any play any other time.

Classes

I just got my grade update for Spring Quarter: I got an A. That continues my 4.0 GPA for my Master’s program. Yeah baby! Two more classes…

Heat

It’s in the 90s here and I’m dying. My AC is working overtime and I just hate to even go outside to the car. I don’t do well in the heat. Make it stop!

I bought a Piece of Pauly and today is the big day. $1500 NLHE Event #22.

I attempted to buy a full share, but Pauly felt bad for me:

Due to your car situation I feel bad if I accepted more than $50.

What a guy I’m now entitled to 1.6% of his mega-winnings.

Go Pauly!!

• Tao of Poker, for real-time tournament reporting and various nonsense including what promises to be a month-long drama involving the coked-up stripper-neighbors
• LasVegasVegas, the Poker Prof and FlipChip providing all sorts of in-depth coverage and lots of pictures
• PokerPlayer Newspaper

I still haven’t played poker much lately. I missed out on a live tourney last Saturday, but I spent it with Mrs H. Those of you who are married know that long term, spending time with the wife is ++++EV. We had a great day and so it was well worth it.

Father’s day was mixed. The Father’s day part was good. I got a couple of shirts and a cigar and I had a good lunch with my parents and brother. I got home in time to watch the Formual 1 US Grand Prix.

Or what there was of it.

What a debacle. I won’t bore the poker people with the details, I’ve already been in touch with a couple of my racing friends about it. Even though Ferrari and Michael Schumacher won, it was definitely a hollow win. It was a sad day for Formula 1.

I then watched the Champ Car race after smoking my cigar. No NASCAR this weekend.

Anyway…

I had some time on Monday night, so I headed back to Party and played a little 1/2 NL. I only played one table this time. Of course, my theory that I’d pay more attention to the table didn’t really come to fruition as it just gave me more time to surf. The upside is that my nut peddling netted me a 75% return on my buyin, so I can’t complain. I may have misplayed a hand a bit and failed to extract full value, but I did get a decent payoff on my quad queens.

I think my more relaxed play lately has benefitted me. I don’t feel a big stress when I play now. For a while it was really a grind, especially during May when I had a downswing for the month. I didn’t look forward to playing, but now I do. I’m only playing 1-2 tables and for a shorter duration, and while not every session is a winner, but it’s fun again.

WSOP Updates

Don’t forget about the WSOP updates.

• Tao of Poker, for real-time tournament reporting and various nonsense including what promises to be a month-long drama involving the coked-up stripper-neighbors
• LasVegasVegas, the Poker Prof and FlipChip providing all sorts of in-depth coverage and lots of pictures
• PokerPlayer Newspaper

  Ultimate Bet Poker Show

  Wow, the play was terrible. The show is made up of people who won on UB, so there are no “names”. As inconsistent as Ultimate Poker Challenge was, at least there were big names to watch. Not so here. Some of the play was terrible.

  If you have desires to be on TV, you should really go check these out. They run multiple freeroll satellites daily. Seriously. Check them out at UB.