Poker Night #56: Nearly Worst to Nearly First

Now this was more like it. Good cards came. For the most part, they held up. And with the help of a couple of all-in escapes late in the evening, we rebounded from Wednesday night's early crash to finish fifth in tonight's first tournament at Lil' Kim's Cove. (We skip the second game, so we can blog about it for you.)

Our approach admittedly was more cautious tonight. We only "chased" marginal hands if we were in the blinds, or had the chip advantage to afford it. Many times that worked. On this hand at the semifinal table, it didn't:

BLINDS: 2,000/4,000

IN THE POCKET: 5-5.

It's enough to call, but not much more with blinds at this level. Several players join in.

ON THE FLOP: 5-A-Q (as best we recall)

We're effectively on the button, and sitting very pretty with three of a kind. So when our turn comes, we raise 7,000 on top of the 4,000. Two players take the challenge.

ON THE TURN: K.

Hmmmm. We check, as do the others. Maybe if we had bet again, we wouldn't have seen....

ON THE RIVER: J.

Uh-oh. A straight is there for the taking, and suddenly a late play isn't advantageous anymore. A player ahead of us makes a bet of 5,000 or so.

"I think you've got it." And we fold. We were right.

The final push came for us with blinds at 5,000/10,000. We bet early with K-Q, but another player has the cards to make a seven-card straight.

MINISTRY MOMENT: At our starter table, one player wore a metal cross around his neck. We bring it up asking, "Is that a fashion statement or a statement of faith?"

"I'm Catholic," the man admits. The man to his immediate left mentions he is as well.

We show the man our "Jesus as your Savior" coin, and he agrees with the message it has. It turns out he attends Columbus's biggest Catholic church, and his daughter is in a Catholic high school. And he didn't really harm his religious example during the evening.

He didn't make it to the final table, but we did -- and at one point there, a man frustrated by his cards exclaims the name of Jesus. "He's my hope of salvation," we add.

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 24 final tables in 56 nights (42.9%) - 7 cashes.

YAHOO POKER TOTAL: $11,728 - up $391. But that's very misleading, as we climbed to a record high of $12,232 two days ago. We've dropped $500 in two days there, due to some bad beats.