NBC Sports Championship #7: Deep Into the Night

NBC Sports had some kind of glitch early in the week, which resulted in our receiving an invitation to the Sunday night "Weekly Championship" on Tuesday afternoon. We registered early, and took advantage of the open door....

:04 IN: We have K-10, and go heads up against a player named "Jezebelle." In the Bible, Elijah ran away from a woman with that name making threats (I Kings 19:1-3). We don't, and wind up with K's and Q's for a $415 pot.

:27 IN: We have K-9 of hearts, and go against our tendency by playing it. Two Kings come on the flop! We take a $1,935 pot.

:40 IN: We have A-4. Three hearts come on the flop (we have none), but one of them is a 4. We dare to bet $500 on bottom pair, and the table folds.

:43 IN: We have J-9. On the flop: J-Q-Q. We stay in through a 9-8, and top a King high for a $1,600 pot.

:47 IN: We have A-2 of diamonds. On the flop: A-8-5, with the 8 a diamond. We call a $420 bet. The turn is 7d, but the river is another 7. Another player dares to push all-in. We call -- and he has Q-Q. Our chip stack jumps to $7,570!

:49 IN: We have 6-6 -- and when K-K comes on the flop, two pair are good enough to win for us again. We jump above $13,000, to #11 in the standings out of 857 players!

1:12 IN: We have A-Q of clubs. On the flop: A-6-2 (no clubs). With the blinds at 200/400, a player check-raises to 1,000. We call -- and eventually top the opponent's A-10! The chip stack tops $12,000. With 150 players to go, we reach #9 on the leaderboard!

1:37 IN: We have Q-10. On the flop: 6-K-Q. We stay in through some betting, and a 4-K. Our two pair top an opponent's A-J for an $8,900 pot! The chip stack approaches $15,000.

At the two-hour break, only 40 players remain. We're still alive at #32, with 8,350 chips. Our breathing during hands is getting a bit heavy.

2:00 IN: Right off the bat out of the break, we have A-Q. With the blinds in the 1,200 range, an opponent doubles the bet. We call, and a weak 4-3-7 flop comes. But the turn is a 3, the river is a Q -- and our two pair tops the opponent's A-J! That leads to this MINISTRY MOMENT....

Dealer: flopblog wins Main Pot ($20000) with Two pair, queens and threes
Me: (whew) PTL
FIGJAM: whats that pitty the loser
FIGJAM: Whats PTL
Me: Praise the Lord.
BobbyT1210: p*** the loot
FIGJAM: Ah
FIGJAM: Guess I should have went to church today
Me: I went Saturday pm - to give the devil his don't.

We mentioned our new abbreviation of praise in another post. Figjam was the first person to ask about it. (But sadly, critics of The PTL Club's excesses indeed gave that shorthand other words.)

We actually do keep a seventh-day Saturday Sabbath. That's kept us away from some tempting tournaments, but we're dealing with it. And oh yes, we don't keep Halloween -- so while others may have "given the devil his due" on Saturday, we did the opposite. :-)

2:07 IN: We have K-J offsuit. On the flop: 10h-4h-3 not a heart. Players check. On the turn: Jh. We bet $1,600 with no heart in our hand -- and top pair is enough to scare the crowd away. That's a $7,300 pot!

The Championship now has 32 players left -- and we're #19.

2:14 IN: We have 7-5 of hearts in the big blind. On the flop: 8-3-5 (no hearts). Players check. On the turn: 2. On the river: 7. Emboldened with two pair, we bet about $3,000 -- and get burned by an opponent hiding with three 3's.

2:17 IN: We're dealt K-Q, with $7,900 left. Blinds now are so high that it's time to push this all-in. A player calls -- and the flop brings 2-3-Q! Running 2's follow, and our full house tops an opponent with 9-9! We survive and jump to $21,200.

2:18 IN: We have A-9 of hearts in the very next hand. We limp with them, to avoid being overconfident. On the flop: 7-10-8, all spades. We call a $3,000 bet with an open-ended straight draw. On the turn: 9c. On the river: 4d. We dare to bet $3,000 on the theory another player missed a draw -- but no. He has K-J, and takes the pot with a straight. We admit in the chat that was a bad decision on our part.

2:25 IN: We have K-J, and $8,099 in chips left. We're first to act, and push all-in. A player calls us -- but with K-Q. The flop is K-Q-2. While a Jack comes on the river, we're outgunned.

FINAL: 23rd place out of 857! Not a win, but certainly thrilling -- and it's our best finish ever in the Sunday night big game.

Compared with the prize pool at the World Series of Poker Main Event, we would have been well in the money -- about 175th place, earning 3.6 times our buy-in. Sadly, NBC Sports only pays the top three finishers.