Chris Halverson’s Blog

I rolled into Case de Dirk on Friday night with a bottle of vodka (Jason was responsible for bringing the Red Bull and thank God he was on time) and a bag of puffy Cheetos (which proved to be a huge hit despite the fact that it made everybody wipe their hands on their pants), ready to show people how a Professional Poker Player™ plays tournament poker. Fortunately for the rest of the people, sometimes luck is involved and therefore I did not win as I expected to do. sigh

As usual, the tournament was very well organized and extremely well run. $30 buyin for T3000, $20 rebuys at T500 or lower for another T3000. At the first break there was a $20 add-on for another T3000, but only if you had not done a rebuy. I’m not sure on that rule, but whatever works.

There were eventually 21 people who showed up and we started pretty much on time which is saying something on a Friday night. I was at table 2 with a couple people I recognized from previous tournaments.

Nothing too exciting happened for a while. I lost a (large relatively given the blinds) pot when I did a very weak bet and was raised and had to fold my bluff. We had one guy who was on a tear and was quickly the mega-chip leader at our table.

First notable hand was when I had AJo, and at the turn the board was 599J. I bet big trying to push chip leader off the hand as and to try to see where I stood. He min-raised me and I called. The river brought an Ace and he led out enough to put me all in and I called.

He flipped over 55 for a flopped boat.

Rebuy, Table 2!

I then proceed to go on a rush, busting one player with AKs (he had KQo and we flopped a K). At the break I had T7800 which was above average, so I was feeling pretty good. Of course, once people did the add-on I was closer to average than above.

After the break, the blinds started increasing pretty quickly and I lost 80% of my stack in one hand. I had AJs and raised. I was called in one place. I missed the flop but did a continuation bet (maybe utilizing a “q” or “m” or something, who knows, but it sounded good), was raised and I raised back but was quickly called. Hmm…Not good. We both check the turn and the river brings me an Ace which means I’m pretty much screwed. He throws out a bet that’s probably half the pot and I call only to find out he flopped a set.

I’m now crippled and am basically only thinking two words: “All” and “in”.

I don’t even remember the hand I busted on, but I think I had A8o and never improved and lost to a baby pair when my pre-flop raise was less than 3x the big blind.

I finished 14th out of 21 and $50 poorer. I was pretty tired and watched Jason for a bit (who ended up in 4th and in the money) before heading home.

The best part of the night was when Dirk, while explaining the rules, chip colors, etc. points to his 6 year old daughter and says, “Don’t worry about swearing in front of her, she’s heard it all”. She then proceeds to be the beer runner for everybody, collecting bottle caps and tips along the way. It was great.

OK, one day until tourney night and I’m in full prep mode.

I should receive my iPod nano today, from UPS:

Nov 17, 2005 6:12 A.M. MINNEAPOLIS, MN, US OUT FOR DELIVERY

Woo hoo! Well, either that or somebody else ordered me something from PokerStars, and if so, thanks!

So now all I need to do is get some big ass headphone and sunglasses and I’ll have the “look” down.

As far as “skill”. Well, I am a Professional Poker Player™ (not to mention the acknowledged 21st best poker playing blogger in the world), so in reality I’ve already got that covered. However, you can never really know too much, right?

So I watched the 2005 WSOP final table and learned that if you’re the short stack at the table, just wait around a bit and let others knock each other out and you can win. That’s good because I occasionally find myself short stacked.

I have also decided I should read up a bit, but due to time constraints I need to limit myself to one book. What to choose? I decided my only real choices were Phil Hellmuth’s “Play Poker Like the Pros” or Dan Harrington’s “Harrington on Hold’Em”. Negating the fact that HoH is actually about tournaments, I decided to take a more objective view.

Really it just comes down to the fact that Hellmuth has 9 bracelets and Harrington only has 1. ‘Nuff said.

Well, that and with Hellmuth I don’t have to learn things like “position”, “q”, “odds” or “math”. I just need to know about eagles, mice and such. Much easier.

So I read parts of Hellmuth’s book again! Wow! Did you know he cleaned up in games at Madison! Awesome! Eagles! Mice! All I know is that the boys at the game tomorrow better look out!

Work

Wednesday was an interesting day. It started on Tuesday when, at 4:00pm, we received an email from the president of our company. He said there would be an all company meeting at 3:30 on Wednesday and that you had better have a good reason to miss it if you can’t be there.

Hmm…

Well, we come to find out that our company is being sold. There’s a story at the StarTribune. This was one of those “worst kept secret” types of things. Many people figured it was happening, but not to who or when. Now that it’s done, a lot of the business things that have happened over the last 6 months or so suddenly make sense.

There is, of course, the usual mix of people who think it’s good and those who think it’s the worst thing ever. I fall on the “good” side. My friends probably aren’t surprised at that, being the eternal optimist that I am, but I seriously think it’s good for the company. Our previous (current) parent company isn’t really focused on our industry and has sold off other, more profitable, businesses in the last couple of years, so it only makes sense that they’d sell us too.

Plus they’re offering us retention plans, so that’s nice. Of course, the rumor is a certain percentage, which some people think is good, and others think is terribly small.

Anyway, we’ll see how it shakes out. I’m not surprisingly optimistic, but you never know.

Scotch

What’s better than sitting with your wonderful and lovely wife, kicking back and relaxing on a Thursday night? Well, nothing really, but a close second may be receiving a Dial-A-Shot from AlCantHang. Nothing like getting a call asking for Scotch advice. Of course, he’s asking for advice to get Scotch for people who are actually from the UK, so the pressure was on. Not sure how it turned out, but there was a shot of SoCo downed in flyover land in coordination with one at the Boathouse.

Poker

On the poker front, I will be playing in a home tourney next week. This is another in the semi-regular “Dirk’s Tourney” series which just happens to be about the best run tourneys around. Buy in is $30 with $20 rebuys for the first 90 minutes. I’m already trying to instill fear by saying I’m only bringing $30. I also make sure to remind them that they’ll be playing against a Professional Poker Player™ and, let’s not forget, the 21st best poker playing blogger in the world. So far it hasn’t worked, but there’s still a week left…

That’s right, and don’t forget it… (Thanks to Easycure)

Due to my company deciding to do a software audit, and due to the fact that I don’t feel the need to play at 12 different poker sites per month, I went about cashing out and uninstalling sites. Holy cow, I had a lot of sites installed on this here work computer. Of course, they’re only worried about things like Microsoft licenses and such and don’t really care about “free” software (my company is pretty flexible in the sense that it really is basically my computer to install what I want or need).

See, despite being a Professional Poker Player™ and being able to afford my own laptop, I use my work laptop to play poker on because I’m cheap like that. I bring it home every night under the auspices that I could work from home if needed. Of course, I think I last did actual work at home back in July or so, but that’s beside the point. Plus, I’m a developer so I got them to get me a super juicy one (you need more memory and the 1900×1200 display to do Java development, right?). I thought I had got the better video card, but evidently they only got me the 32MB one which makes playing some things more difficult.

Anyway, I figured having money stashed around at sites I’m not playing at is just, well, kind of dumb. I may was well bring it all back and store it in an offshore site that offers me no protection, right?

Of course, half of those sites are Crypto sites, which means using your PIN to cash out. All was fine until I got to Interpoker. Uh oh. No PIN. Well, I had one recorded, but the number “99999” should have been a tipoff that it was just a placeholder in my passwords file. Therefore the healthy balance I have sitting there will be there for a couple more weeks until some guy in Gibraltar sends it to me. Joy!

I’m not cashing out to my bank yet. You never know, I may get the urge to play a lot again and may need a roll. I’ll keep money at Stars, Party and a bit at Full Tilt, but everything else is cashed out. Having it all in Neteller gives me a lot of flexibility, so I’ll just keep it there until I figure out what I really want to do with it. All I know is that unless I go on a SirWaffle-esque spree or unless there’s a mutiny in Gibraltar or Malta or wherever, that it will still be there when I need it. If I bring it “home”, lord only knows what stupid things I’d do with it

My sub-menu of poker sites is now remarkably short. Kind of strange. It’s like giving up old friends in a way. Of course, some of them, say any Crypto site, are like the lazy friend who comes over, crashes on your couch, drinks your beer, eats your food and generally takes up space while raising your stress level the whole time. Then again, maybe they won’t be missed…

Oh, I’ve watched a couple episodes of Full Tilt’s Learn From the Pros. I’ll give it a review in a bit. Short version: Pretty good with the exception of having Chris Rose.

Phrase of the day: Skol Vikings!!!

In an effort to keep up my Professional Poker Player™ status, I fired up good ‘ol Party Poker last night to play a little no limit hold ‘em.

I had some of the best cards I’ve ever had, yet had to be sitting at the tighted 100NL table ever on Party. Pre-flop raises would take everything down. We’re talking min-raises too. So basically I had a down session because when I had cards I got no callers. When I caught something, somebody had better.

Such is life. Such is poker. Still had fun so all is good.

Of course, last night was Halloween. In my suburban neighborhood I had exactly 12 trick or treaters.

Thankfully I had 5 bags of candy. Of my favorite candy of course

So I’m reading about all the fun you yokels will be having in Vegas in December.

Eff. You.

Once again, the winter version is kicking ass and taking names. Once again, those of us with, oh, responsibilities, won’t be there.

But you know, I’m not bitter or anything, so go ahead and have fun. All I’ve got to say is that I better damn well get a dial a shot somewhere along the way.

During that time I’ll be drinking single malt Scotch while listening to my iPod nano knowing I’m the 21st best blogging poker player in the world, but wishing I could be playing craps with friends in Vegas.

You guys all suck. ‘Nuff said. Except that I’m sure I’ll complain about it more, just get ready for it