A man across the table from us at Soho Bar and Grill tonight said he'd been sick. It was his first time outside his home in three days. So how would he do at the poker table? We learned that answer the hard way....
BLINDS: 25/50
IN THE POCKET: 10-7 of diamonds
It's only the second hand of the evening -- so this is worth a try. We call, as do most players.
ON THE FLOP: 10-8-5 (8 is a diamond)
It's top pair, and the action checks to us. We bet 200, hoping to scare "chasers" away. But a couple of players stay in, including the recovering sick man.
ON THE TURN: Ace of hearts
The flush dream is gone, and our "top pair" is topped. But we've seen cases where players continue to be aggressive in situations like this, and wind up with the pot. We bet 200 again.
"Raise," says the sick man. He adds 1,000, and we're in a quandary. He lost a lot of chips on the first hand. Is this a bluff to steal the pot? Is he prepared to throw in the towel, go home and recover? We sense a bluff, and call. Everyone else has folded by now.
ON THE RIVER: 7
Now we have two pair. But it's time for us to play some cat-and-mouse. We check, and our opponent throws in 550.
"I don't mind helping a sickly man," we say -- and call.
"I've got two pair," he announces. Trouble is, he has A-5. He takes the pot, costing us more than one-third of our chips.
That ailing man did it to us again in the next hand, winning a big pot to lower us to 950 chips. "Sick," we said to the players around us -- as in the modern lingo for very good.
Yet all was not lost tonight. We went all-in with 850 chips holding K-J, and a pair of Kings was enough to bounce us back to 4,350. Then we were dealt pocket Aces, went all-in again and improved to about 11,000. But things drained away after that huge comeback, and we finished 14th -- barely missing the semifinal table.
MINISTRY MOMENT: "I see you have a battery as a card protector," a man walking to our table said to us. (For the record, it was AAA.)
We're glad he brought that up. "You know what that reminds me?" we answered. "That I receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon me."
This analogy seemed to go right over the man's head. But we were quoting some of Jesus's final words of advice to His disciples, in Acts 1:8. We were in a mood for something a bit more provocative tonight -- but do you think it was too obscure?
UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 48 final tables in 121 nights (39.7%) - 10 cashes.
People in our home city of Columbus, GA will want to know Lil Kim's Cove will have poker as usual Thursday night. And we're told (but have not confirmed) the Shanty Shack will have poker Friday night. Yes -- poker tournaments on what many consider Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. What do you think of that?
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