Poker Night 154: Better Late Than Early

The night started well for us at Lil Kim's Cove. After we were moved twice in the first ten minutes, we landed at a table where nice cards came. We won three of the first four hands. But as someone once said in sports: It's not how you start, but how you finish....

BLINDS: 500/1,000

IN THE POCKET: A-Q offsuit

After the early success, not much has come our way. We were moved to a table with a big bettor who rolled up a huge score, then decided to give up the game and abandon it all. Thanks to the distribution of his 31,000 chips among the remaining six players, we're at 7,000. Now five people are playing -- and there's little to think about here.

"All in," we declare after the first player in line calls. A man to our left calls the 7,000. Then a man to our right pushes in all his chips, and he has something around 25,000. The man to the left surrenders.

"I've got al-Qaeda," we say showing our cards. Our opponent, as usual at Lil Kim's Cove, keeps his cards face down.

ON THE FLOP: 7-5-3

It would be nice if we paired something here.

ON THE TURN: J

As we say, it would be really, really nice if a big card came.

ON THE RIVER: 7

Remember what we noticed about the Heads-Up Poker telecast Sunday -- that overcards won races over pocket pairs? Trouble is, pocket pairs were shown on NBC's computer as a slight statistical favorite. And in this case, our opponent had 10-10.

"His blog is called Losers-Are-Us," a skeptic across the table jokes as we record the hand, finishing in about 15th place. With friends like that at the poker table....


MINISTRY MOMENT: "You know who invented that?" the Tournament Director asked when he saw our small bottle of Liquid Paper which was used as a card protector. Nope, we didn't know.

"Remember Mike Nesmith of the Monkees? His mother invented that." We fact-checked as we wrote this -- and he's absolutely correct. Nesmith wound up a multi-millionaire as a result of his creative mom.

"You know why he brought it, don't you?" that skeptic across the table said. He knew the answer, because we discussed it with him weeks before. But now the Tournament Director was stumped.

"It reminds me that Jesus can wash my sins whiter than snow," we said. The Director thought that connection was clever.

"What did you say?" the skeptic asked. We were glad to repeat that answer for the entire table.

"You're kidding," a young man to our left said -- the same young man who told us Wednesday night he reads this blog, and wanted his pair of 9's mentioned.

"No, I'm not kidding. Jesus can wash your sins whiter than snow" (Isaiah 1:18).

We think the young man's statement really involved our using that bottle as a religious witnessing tool. He eventually admitted he believes in Jesus.

A message of Jesus pleases some, while annoying others. It's been that way since the apostle Paul stood before a crowd in Athens nearly 2,000 years ago.

"When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said: 'We want to hear you again on this subject'.... A few men became followers of Paul and believed" (Acts 17:32-34).

By asking us to repeat the explanation, the skeptic actually opened the door for us to present a quick message about Christ. But we have to ask in light of Acts 17: which group are you in when it comes to Jesus?

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 60 final tables in 154 nights (39.0%) - 11 cashes. It's our lowest percentage in a long time, but does that mean we're a loser?

NATIONAL LEAGUE OF POKER TOTAL: Heads-up games: 6-4. Full tournaments - 32 point wins in 205 games (15.6%); 13 final tables, 0 cashes.

For the second time in ten days, we came in second at a big tournament this week. Wednesday's game had 212 players -- and it's an amazing story to be told in another post.

POKER STARS.NET TOTAL: One-table sit-and-goes - 2 wins in 10 games. (We had a win there Tuesday, in our first tournament there since February.) Pretend cash game total: $12,543, down $2,260. (If not for the tournament, things would have been much worse.)