Poker Night 111: Slow and Steady Wins the Race

Some poker players seem intent on getting a fast start at a tournament, by making big bets right away. In some cases that works. At Lil Kim's Cove tonight, it didn't....

BLINDS: 25/50

IN THE POCKET: 10-9 offsuit

We lost the draw for dealer, so we sit in the big blind for the first hand of the night. A man across the table raises 250, and we join a couple of players in calling.

ON THE FLOP: 10-5-3

Top pair is nice to us. We modestly bet 100, but the man who raised a moment ago raises 800. Does he have a higher pocket pair?

"I'm probably asking for trouble," we say -- but we call, as does another man.

ON THE TURN: 10

Three of a kind is even nicer to us. But now we play coy and check. Emboldened player #2 (not the one who's been raising) throws out 3,500 -- a huge sum, considering players start with a base of 5,000 (plus bonus chips for purchasing food and drinks). Player #3 goes mano a mano and calls. So do we -- but what do these guys really have?

ON THE RIVER: K

That's a bit concerning. If one of the other players had pocket Kings, they now have us topped. We check again. Player #2 goes all-in. So does Player #3. We've come this far by faith (to borrow from a Christian song), so we call -- which somehow leaves us with about 650 chips to spare. We're not sure why.

"I have a 10," we announce.

Player #2 apparently doesn't hear us. "I have TWO PAIR!" Yes, he does -- 5's and 3's. But that's not good enough. Player #3 also had two pair, but he's eliminated as well. One hand down, two players out -- and our chip count above 17,000 already.

It was the start of another hot night for us. We claimed another big pot in the second hand with A-Q, and kept building from there. After one hour, we had 49,500 chips. After two hours at the final table, we had about 90,000.

But then some losses came -- and despite a furious three-way fight where we kept rallying, a man went all-in against us with two hearts and caught a flush with a heart on the river. That hurt big, and we were eliminated minutes later. But by finishing third (one away from winning money), we were the only person to make the final table two nights in a row.

MINISTRY MOMENT: We bailed out of one big pot late in the first hour -- a pot which prompted a woman to our right to say, "Have mercy, Jesus."

"May Jesus have mercy on us all," we answered quietly -- probably too quietly for anyone to hear it. But then we turned to a man on our left and asked, "Do you believe Jesus is merciful?"

That man gave no answer. What would yours be? Ours will come in another post.

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 47 final tables in 111 nights (42.3%) -- 10 cashes. We've made the final table at Lil Kim's Cove in four of our last five tries!

YAHOO POKER TOTAL: $13,816 - unchanged (no games played)

NBC SPORTS POKER TOTAL: Five-player sit-n-goes: 31-36-10-6-9. Full tournaments: 25 final tables in 216 games (11.6%), 2 cashes.

While the Sunday night championship tournament was strong for us, we missed earning points by one position three separate times in the last week! (And we had one monumental bust, but that's a story for another day.)

NATIONAL LEAGUE OF POKER TOTAL: Five-player sit-n-goes: 2-1-0-0-0. No full tournaments yet.