Poker Night 146: Plenty of Nothing

Did you ever have one of those days? You know -- one of THOSE days? We did tonight at Lil Kim's Cove. Good cards simply would not come. And semi-promising hands kept falling short -- such as 8-8 in the pocket meeting a flop of A-K-9, or A-5 of hearts getting whipped by big pre-flop raises. The drought finally came down to this....

BLINDS: 1,000/2,000

IN THE POCKET: 7-10 of diamonds

We begin the hand with only 1,500 chips. We're in the small blind, so that post has left us a mere 500 to bet. The play calls to us -- and facing little to lose, we go all-in. Several players are against us.

ON THE FLOP: J-K-10 (K is a diamond)

There's a glimmer of hope here -- three diamonds, but bottom pair. The players around us check.

ON THE TURN: Q (not a diamond)

A man across from us bets 4,000. Uh-oh. The flush dream is gone, and he might have hit it big.

ON THE RIVER: 5 of diamonds

One pair, one diamond short of a nice rally -- and an opponent who bet because he has an Ace. A straight on the turn leaves us turned away, in 17th place.

MINISTRY MOMENT: "What is that?" a young woman asked when she sat down next to us, looking at our card protector.

"It's a matzo," we told her -- actually a small corner of one. She had no idea what that is, so we explained it's a flat kind of bread.

"This is the Passover season -- the days of unleavened bread," we continued. It recalls the time long ago when the Israelites left Egypt, we said.

"Does that bring you good luck?" The woman might as well have cut through our discussion with a bread knife.

"I haven't won a hand all night. I guess not."

Then we added the matzo reminds us to come out of sin. "Oh, OK," the woman answered. Perhaps this item was a bit too complex for a poker ministry topic?! If it's too complex to you, we'll try to clarify things in a future post.

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 59 final tables in 146 nights (40.4%) - 11 cashes.

NATIONAL LEAGUE OF POKER TOTAL: Full tournaments - 26 point wins in 163 games (16.0%), 10 final tables with no cashes.

We finally finished spring cleaning at home this week, which allowed more time to return to online poker. We've placed "in the points" (usually top ten percent) once in four games -- including 23rd out of 599 Tuesday night.

POKER STARS.NET TOTAL: Pretend cash games - $15,788, up $665.