We're on a road trip to surprise our older brother -- a surprise we were careful NOT to reveal when he called us during an online tournament last weekend. (Read about it in the 6 Sep 09 entry at The Blog of Columbus, Georgia.) A little Google searching led us to a free poker tournament tonight in the college town of Lawrence, Kansas.
"The Pool Room" is filled with pool tables (duh), but offers poker tournaments on Sundays and Wednesdays. We hurried in a couple of minutes late for the 7:00 p.m. CT game -- but room was made for us, and we were happy to find it. Despite some moments which made us look like a road rookie, we made the final table and finished fifth in a three-table tourney. (Labor Day weekend apparently reduced the crowd.)
Starting with 4,000 chips, we won a couple of small pots -- but we stood under 5,000 when a breakthrough hand came:
BLINDS: 100/200
IN THE POCKET: K-10
We're dealing, and a player ahead of us raises to 500. We call, as do a few other players.
ON THE FLOP: Q-J-3
Oooo -- a tempting, well-disguised open-ended straight draw. The player who raised before bets 400, to "give us a break." We talk about him hitting the breaks, and call along with a couple of others.
ON THE TURN: A
Perfect -- only then, we are not for a moment. The player doing the betting checks. Then we bet 1,500, forgetting a player next to us still hasn't acted. We apologize. He checks. We leave the 1,500 out as our bet. Two players call, including the original bettor; all others fold.
ON THE RIVER: Q
Oh-oh -- not so perfect. The man who started all the action pushes all-in, with a much bigger stack than we have. Did he hit a full house with that Queen? As committed to the pot as we are, we're prepared to take our lumps.
"All I have is 1,075," we say. But we call -- and our "Broadway" straight impresses the table.
"All I had was a Queen," the other man admits. "I was stabbing at it." Good try, but not good enough.
We had 14,000 chips at the final table, but then we ran into a buzzsaw player. He pushed all-in for the third hand in a row, after taking two all-or-nothing bets. We had K-10 again, and dared to call a bet of 12,000 -- but he had A-3, and a three (!) came to top us. That left us with 2,000 in the big blind, and our 5-5 was beaten by another man who paired an Ace.
MINISTRY MOMENT: The Pool Room's music is largely hip-hop -- and at the final table, a rapper said something about going to church.
"Do you go to church?" we asked a young man to our immediate left.
"No," he admitted. "I wish I did."
"Plenty of churches out there," we answered -- and we think most of them would be happy to welcome that man. We mentioned a Sabbath-keeping congregation where we worshiped Saturday morning. It leaves plenty of room to play poker on a Sunday night.
UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 41 final tables in 98 nights (41.8%) - 9 cashes. (Oh yes, The Pool Room only pays $10 for the winner of a poker tournament -- nothing for the runner-up.)
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