Thursday, April 16, 2009

Poker Night #66: Kicker-Boxing

"It's good to be king," the song says. But there are times when it's better for the King to have a friend in high places. We learned this the hard way tonight, as our stack at Lil Kim's Cove drained fairly quickly and we were eliminated in 22nd place out of about 30.

We never won a pot all evening, but at times felt really confident about our chances. The biggest one was this....

BLINDS: 50/100

IN THE POCKET: K-10.

Betting is small and standard, so several people at the full table join in.

ON THE FLOP: 7-4-K

Top pair is nice. But someone bets about 300 ahead of us, so we simply call when our turn comes. Does that player have two pair?

ON THE TURN: 7.

If others do, now we do too. A player ahead of us bets 500, and we join a four-way fight for the pot.

ON THE RIVER: 6.

The player who keeps leading out bets 1,000. Two other players ahead of us call. Did someone hit a full house, by having a pocket pair? We've come this far by faith, so we call.

"I have Kings and 7's," we say turning over the cards. Trouble is, the two players immediately ahead of us also have Kings. One has K-8; not good enough. But a woman has K-J, and the higher kicker takes the pot. Ouch, that hurts.

(The lead bettor probably hurt even more. He staked a lot of chips on pocket 2's.)

The end for us came in an old-fashioned race, where we had Jh-9h and hit top pair on the flop. A man across the table bet 2,500 to force us all in. With 2,050, we decided to go -- and he had A-J. While 7-8 came on the board, the critical 10 for a straight did not.

MINISTRY MOMENT: "What'cha been doing?" a long-time poker buddy sitting next to us asked tonight. We hadn't seen him in some time.

"I wasn't here last week due to religious commitments -- the Spring Holy Days," we say quietly. He laughed, but didn't ask further about which days. Check "The King comes first" to find out which ones.

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 26 final tables in 66 nights (39.4%) - 7 cashes.

YAHOO POKER TOTAL: $12,053 -- down $110. We can't quite get over the hump, to break our record high of January.

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