Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Poker Night #91: Candle Power

"Where's your baseball?" the man sitting to our right asked at Lil Kim's Cove tonight.

"That was last week," we explained. We changed "card protectors" tonight to a small candle with a glass holder. See if you can guess why we brought it, as we review a hand which had us guessing to the end....

BLINDS: 50/100

IN THE POCKET: A-10 offsuit.

We're late in the betting order, and a man ahead of us raises to 400. Fine by us.

ON THE FLOP: 10-4-2 (suit not a factor)

We make top pair with the "top kicker." Yet the man who raised before bets even more now, tossing out 600. We call; perhaps one other player does.

ON THE TURN: 6.

The man ahead of us bets 600 again. Could he actually be in the lead with two pair? We're fretful, but calling.

ON THE RIVER: 4.

Now we have two pair -- but the man ahead of us attacks again, betting 1,200.

We had resolved before tonight's match to play a little tighter. Chasing dream hands hurt us online a few times this week. But....

"I'm probably wrong," we say -- and call.

"I ain't got nothing," the opponent says. Oh yeah? He's a master of understatement, as he shows a 10-J. He has the same two pair we do.

"I have 10 with an Ace," we note -- and the kicker saves the day, allowing us to claim a pot on the order of 6,000 chips.

We only won one other hand from that point, missing out on a couple of others by "resisting temptation" and folding potential winners. But we held on through other people's all-in moments and a couple of timely "blind skips" to reach the final table. Our last straw came with only 4,500 chips, and 4,000 committed to the big blind. The play checked to us.

"I'm ALL-IN!!!!!!" we declared with loud mock drama. Our last green 500 chip went in, and we had 7-7 -- but another player had an Ace, and paired it on the flop. He knocked out another player with us, so we wound up tied for fifth place -- our best live showing in three weeks.

MINISTRY MOMENT: "Do you know why a brought a candle?" we said to the man at our right who asked about it. "I read in a book I'm supposed to be a light to the world."

"Oh," the man answered. He was baffled by the reference, so later we explained what book had that phrase.

"It's in the Bible. The words of Jesus. [Mt. 5:14, 16] Do you read the Bible?"

"Not regularly." We encouraged the man to do so, saying he might find some surprising things there.

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 38 final tables in 91 nights (41.8%) - 8 cashes.

This actually was our second final table of the day. During the afternoon, we finished ninth in a 43-player online game at NBC Sports.

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