Chris Halverson’s Blog

Thanks to four tabling I was able to clear the latest Party reload bonus.

Thanks to the blogger table I lost money (before the bonus).

Well, actually I had a terrible day on Friday. I played about 800 hands and was down overall. I tried a little hit and run when I came home early from work. That ended badly, dropping a buyin at one table.

After Mrs. H and I had a sausage pizza at Godfathers, I came home and started four tabling the 25NL. I played pretty well, but was down two buyins by the end of the night. I got a little over aggressive when I had cowboys, then I got nailed holding the small side of a full house. I don’t think the four tabling really hurt that, because really, how often can you lay down a full house? I’m not that good, so I called.

I was playing at a table with John-Paul for a while (down a buyin there, but shortly after he left I tripled up, so JP, I turned out OK on that table) when he types into the chat:

Iggy is at my other table. Go to Table XXX

Hmmm…just what I need, a way to blow some more money. I decide to throw caution to the wind and get on the waiting list and shortly thereafter I’m seated directly to Iggy’s right, with JP and Derek to his left and a couple other bloggers to my right (sorry, let me know and I’ll fix up the links).

The 25NL tables that I played at on Friday seemed very tight. Iggy, who had professed to having numerous pints of Guinness as well as a (un)healthy amount of Vicodin, was berating the table for being too tight. Repeatedly he threw out:

YOU ALL ARE PANSIES! MAKE THE CALL!

Of course, he suckered me into one hand already that had brought me down enough to the point where I capped off again. I can’t face a blogger table without ammo.

I finally clear my bonus and announce it to the table. I then go to the cabinet and pour a nice big glass of Oban Scotch and sit back down. Now that the bonus is cleared, I’ve started to drop the other tables as I get to my blinds. Soon it’s just the blogger table that’s left.

Then it happened. Again.

Iggy had just got done ranting about the general wuss nature of the bloggers that night. After all, it was Friday, where’s the gambool?

The hook was set.

The next hand I’m dealt Ac6d and complete from the small blind. Iggy checks. The flop comes QsKcAs. Hmm…OK, I’ve got top pair but it’s a scary board. I check. Iggy throws out $2 and we lose the LP limper and I call. Turn is an innocent 5c but Iggy fires out $6.

WTF? How can that help him? Does he have KQ or some other two pair? I put him on two pair maybe. I figure I still have outs so I call. The river is the 7s. I check and Iggy, in his drug induced state bets $17.36 of the $17.40 that I have left.

I go into the tank.

I still fear the two pair, but the scotch is telling me he’s bluffing. He’s railed on the table all night and he’s just trying to prove a point. My logical mind is telling me I’m beat. After all, top pair on a board like that probably isn’t good, right?

Guess which mind I listened to?

That’s right, the scotch spoke. Not this time bucko, you’re not bluffing me out of this pot.

Of course, in my slightly alochol induced state I forget to raise the extra 4 cents and just call. Yet another sign of impending doom.

Iggy flips over the TcJc for the flopped straight. Nice.

It figures that this was one of the times that he wasn’t bluffing.

At least he said he was sorry.

Anyway…I was down while playing at Party, but thanks to the bonus I still came out ahead. I’m not a big fan of these small buyin NL tables though. They seem to be a total crapshoot. I’m more of a fan of the deeper stack games at Prima and Crypto sites. It is fun to push all in, but if because you have to in order to make a pot sized bet on the flop.

I’m going to keep playing the NL tables though. I think I’m getting better at it and one bad day does not mean anything in the grand scheme of things. The $45 I lost at the blogger table kinda sucks though.

I don’t think the 4 tabling hurt me either. While probably not optimal, playing NL, at least for me, boils down to playing very strong hands only. Playing four tables prevents me from getting bored and deciding that the low unsuited connectors look good enough to play because I haven’t been in a hand in 20 minutes. I probably will not play four tables all the time, but I may do three more often than not. We’ll see, but I was doing pretty well until last night, so I think I’ll be OK multitabling no limit. Don’t worry, I’ll keep you updated.

Gee, thanks

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 29th, 2005 at 2:23 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.