Chris Halverson’s Blog

Crypto NL Madness

I played at 5 different Crypto sites this weekend a cleared the bonus at all of them. *whew* Only InterPoker remains as that one requires raked hands. I played 50/1 NL ($100 max) all weekend. I was only down at one of them and the bonus more than covered it, so it was up all around. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to get to all of them this month, but it looks like it won’t be a problem now. I also think that it shows that I can play 1400 hands in 7 days if needed. Look for me at the Party 25NL tables in the coming week.

I have to admit, one of the things I like about no limit is seeing things like:

Seat 1: chrisdhal (button) showed [5c Ac] and won ($175) with A Flush, Ace high

At least that guy had the K high flush. Later on I got:

Seat 7: chrisdhal (big blind) showed [Ac 6c] and won ($125.50) with A Flush, Ace high

Just for reference, the board showed 4 clubs. What did the other guy have? You know, the one that raised my $25 bet and went all in. Ah2d That’s right, he raised a $25 bet on the river with a pair of deuces. Without a club. And you think this type of play only happens on Party…

(Sorry Felicia, that’s as close to a hand history that I’ll get.)

Suffice it to say I made out pretty well this weekend. Add on the approximately $250 in bonuses and it was a mighty fine weekend.

Things are starting to come a little easier now, but I still have a ton to learn. No limit a much different game than limit. I still think I probably lay down too many hands facing big bets when I may have the odds to do make the call. I am, however, getting better at throwing out a big bet compared to just last week. I’ve still got a lot of work to do there too. This was made obvious while watching Pauly the other night. Granted, maybe he was just “slumming” so it didn’t matter, but he made a couple of calls/bets that I never would have thought about. I don’t get too fancy or anything, especially pre-flop. Post flop I always bet made hands unless the hand will most likely still be the nuts at the end.

I’m having fun playing no limit. It fits one side of my personality: patience. I can sit there and fold forever before finding a decent hand to play. It doesn’t bother me to do that, I’m not that much of an action junkie. Of course, when things get wild, the heart starts pumping. I do a pretty good job of not being lured into playing marginal hands. Now I just need to work on making the right calls even when I don’t “feel” like it.

Fossilman vs. Sheriff Fatman

Friday night’s heads up match between KOTZ champ Sheriff Fatman and 2004 WSOP World Champ Greg Raymer was short and sweet. It lasted all of 17 hands, which is about twice as long as the heads up match between Raymer and David Williams during the WSOP finals.

How did Raymer win? I think he just got done watching “Tilt”. Well, plus he’s a world champ and knows how to flop the nuts. In other words, just like The Matador he wielded the mighty 64o. This is the new hammer.

The final hand had Sheriff holding TPTK, but is out chipped about 3:1. Small bet on the flop of 239 and when the turn brings the 5 Fossilman has the nuts. Sheriff leads out and Fossilman raises 3x the bet. Sheriff goes over the top all in and of course is called. Basically, if you looked away for a bit you missed it. It was still pretty cool that Raymer took the time to do this.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 23rd, 2005 at 10:29 pm and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.