We don't watch Poker After Dark very often these days, but the opening used to have these words of wisdom from Doyle Brunson: "When luck shuts the door, you've got to come in through the window." Examples of this came our way on back-to-back hands tonight at Lil Kim's Cove.
Early losses and bad cards had us playing tight, so with about 4,400 chips we took a chance on Q-8 of diamonds. A Queen on the flop allowed to bet, and chase all but one other player away. An Ace on the turn led us to check, and our opponent did as well. A third Queen hit the river, and our opponent cursed loudly when we went all in.
"I knew I should have gone all in on that Ace!" he said showing a second Ace. Would we have folded? Hmmmm -- hard to say. But he folded to our big bet, to help us recover about 2,000 chips. Then came the next challenge:
BLINDS: 200/400
IN THE POCKET: King of spades - 9 of hearts
We're in the small blind, and no one raises around us. We call to give it a try.
ON THE FLOP: Kh-8c-2c
Top pair looks good, so we lead off with a bet of 600. About three other players call.
ON THE TURN: 9c
Now we have two pair, so turn up the heat and bet 1,200. A man across from us calls.
"I'm all-in," another player across from us then announces. Uh-oh. Only at that moment do we realize three clubs are showing. This man has a huge stack of chips, so he could take us out. We stop and ponder this for a moment.
"I can't go there," we say -- folding in fear of a flush. The man who called our earlier bet calls again.
"Good call," the big pusher says. Oh no -- have we been duped?
ON THE RIVER: Qh.
"I have two pair," the pusher announces. He has 9-8 -- but no clubs.
"Owwwww!" we say out loud. No one had a club flush. The all-in bet merely represented a flush. We folded a higher two-pair.
Yet that big bettor wound up pushing one time too many, and left the tournament well before we did. Waiting for timely hands paid off for us again, as we reached the final table and finished fourth! We walked home disappointed with how our night ended: a 4-9 in the big blind, then an all-in push with a 10-9-6 flop. A woman simply holding a 10 had us topped -- and we felt like we gave up too soon.
MINISTRY MOMENT: Early in the evening, a woman holding a 6 took a pot with three of a kind. You know: 6-6-6.
"You had a beast," we said jokingly to the woman -- borrowing a line our regular tournament director likes to use.
The woman's husband next to her responded: "Those are just numbers. They don't mean anything." He explained some people consider them superstitious -- for instance, refusing to accept $6.66 in change.
"Someday they're going to mean something," we said. Why did we say that? Because the numbers come right out of the Bible.
"Here is wisdom," Revelation 13:18 says in the New American Standard Bible. "Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for the number is that of a man, and his number is six hundred and sixty-six."
A lot of people claim they have the wisdom to explain what that number means. A simple web search for 666 will prove that. If you'd like to offer your theory about it, leave a comment and we'll consider it.
But we agree with the man in a way -- that some people are superstitious about the number 666. We contend that number by itself can't hurt you. And that's not what you should ultimately fear.
"Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him." Jesus issued that warning in Luke 12:5 (NIV) -- and John 5:22 shows God the Father has given the power of "all judgment" to Jesus the Son. So what do you fear most? A flush on the turn? A set of numbers? Or the coming King of Kings?
UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 54 final tables in 134 nights (40.3%) - 10 cashes. It's nice to climb back above the 40-percent mark again! Five top-ten finishes in the last six nights have done it.
NATIONAL LEAGUE OF POKER TOTAL: Full tournaments - 9 final tables in 139 games (6.5%), no cashes. We came close earlier in the day, coming in 12th out 239 players.
POKERSTARS.NET TOTAL: One-table sit-n-goes: 1-1-0-1-1-4-0-0-1. (We finally won one Sunday!) Cash games: $10,362, down $330. (The sit-n-go win is included in the total, the loss was actually in cash games.)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment