Poker Night 120: Is This a Trap?

Some poker players have a knack of figuring out their opponents' cards, simply by how the opponents bet. We admit we do not have that knack yet. So when we faced a moment of truth at Lil Kim's Cove tonight, we feared the worst....

BLINDS: 100/200

IN THE POCKET: Q-A offsuit

We haven't won a hand yet, and we're down to about 3,200 chips. This is our moment to strike, so we raise to 500. Several players call.

ON THE FLOP: Q-8-7

Good! We have top pair and top kicker. But a woman ahead of us may have something better, because she bets 1,000. That's a substantial amount for us, but we choose to call. No one else does.

ON THE TURN: 3

Ouch -- the woman going first bets 1,000 again. We're down to 1,725. Does she have two pair? After several seconds of pondering, we decide to take a stand.

"I'm all-in," we announce with the extra 725 pushed in. Perhaps not surprisingly, the woman calls.

"I have Queens with an Ace," we admit reluctantly.

"You've got me beat, with the Ace," the woman admits. She has a Queen, but with a smaller kicker.

ON THE RIVER: 6

Three clubs are on the board -- but there's no second pair and no flush. We made the right decision, and jump to 9,550 chips!

We climbed as high as 20,000 in the second hour of play. But then we admittedly started making big bets in "chases" of straights that never came. We dropped to 3,000, then went all-in again with K-Q. But nothing paired for us, while it did for a man with a 3. We finished 12th overall, reaching the semifinal table for the second night in a row.

MINISTRY MOMENT: Earlier in the day, we had our best finish yet at the National League of Poker -- third place out of 225 players. (But only first place took the cash prize of $10.) Along the way, we took on a player named "PornKing." After a polite conversation about online poker sites, we won a nice pot over him.

"PTL, Mr. Porn King," we wrote on the chat line. He didn't respond. But hopefully he looked up what that abbreviation means -- to "Praise the Lord."

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 48 final tables in 120 nights (40%) - 10 cashes.

YAHOO POKER TOTAL: $13,944 - unchanged (no games played)

NATIONAL LEAGUE OF POKER TOTAL: Five-player sit-n-goes - 3-3-2-1-0. Full tournaments - 5 final tables in 58 games (8.6%), no cashes.

POKER STARS.NET TOTAL: Hey wait -- we haven't told you about that, have we? We're there now; details are coming up.