We're not sure how the last card on the board in a poker hand came to be called "the river." The Christian side of us guesses it comes from the Jordan River, which Israel finally crossed to enter the promised land (Joshua 1:2). Yet earlier today, we heard a deceased radio pastor declare people who build close to rivers are guilty of "greed and avarice." (He somehow pulled that out of James 1:13-15.)
At Club Eighty-Five tonight, we saw several cases where people may have come to the river card thinking greedily of winning a pot -- only to see someone else cross on to victory. Take this case....
BLINDS: 100/200
IN THE POCKET: 9-10
We started with 5,500 chips, but haven't won a pot yet and are down to 4,350. A player to our immediate right raises to 400. Looking for something to mount a comeback, we call. So do a couple of others.
ON THE FLOP: 9-3-9
The man who raised before is being incredibly quiet -- except to tell people to watch him, instead of waiting for him to say something. Now he simply sets his stack of 1,025 chips on the table.
"I've gotta call," we say. No one else does. We show our set of 9's. The bettor doesn't turn his cards over.
ON THE TURN: 6
"That's good," we say.
ON THE RIVER: K
That's bad. The opponent flips over K-K -- still saying nothing. The cards speak volumes, as he hits the river and more than doubles up. (Oh yes -- we weren't greedy. Simply hopeful.)
The cards eventually came our way in one hand -- as a King on the turn gave us a K-9 straight. Our all-in bet of 2,125 came through as a triple-up. We held on from there to finish ninth on the night -- and in the process, making the final table on Monday night for the sixth week in a row!
MINISTRY MOMENT: A young man we'll call Hubert grabbed our "Jesus as your Savior" coin from our seat during the evening, and gave it a close look.
"Do you believe that message? Is Jesus your Savior?" we asked.
"Yes. Absolutely," he said.
Hubert stunned the poker room with something else tonight -- he's decided to give up alcohol. During a break, he explained he reached this decision after a recent DUI arrest. "I decided it was either give up beer, or give up driving. And I can't give up driving." We think Hubert made a wise decision -- and maybe that's why he lasted at the final table longer than we did.
UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 56 final tables in 137 nights (40.9%) - 10 cashes.
That's four final tables in our last five nights - but it appears a busy schedule will require us to take a break from live tournaments for the next week or so.
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