The big rally

With the Sabbath past, we now have time to explain what happened to us late Friday afternoon -- our first full tournament win at National League of Poker.

It was another one of those amazing comebacks for us. More than one hour into the match, we were at 275 chips with the blinds at 300/600. We pushed with 6-6, and survived several players with big cards to take a nice pot.

Then another pot came our way. And another. In less than ten minutes, our stack jumped 8,625....

Then to more than 32,000 at the two-hour break, with seven players left at the final table. And minutes later, we were close to 53,000.

After a lengthy three-player fight at the final table, we eliminated a woman to go heads-up with more than 131,000 chips.

We thought we had our opponent here -- with top two pair on the flop. But the other man had a pair of 4's, and escaped with a 4 on the river. He took a $46,000 pot, but we maintained a three-one chip lead. A couple of minutes later, our advantage was 5-1 in chips....

BLINDS: 3,000/6,000

IN THE POCKET: Qs-10h

We're in the small blind, and call. Our opponent doubles the blind, and we call it.

ON THE FLOP: 9d-Qc-Jh

It's top pair and an open-ended straight draw. Yet our opponent bets 7,200. We double that in a raise, and put him all-in. He also has a Queen, but a mere 5 for a kicker card.

ON THE TURN: 4c

There's that pesky 4 again! Except this time, it doesn't help either of us. If we can only escape a 5....

ON THE RIVER: 10c

Two pair! Victory! A mere 10-dollar cash prize (which for a 2 1/2-hour game is less than minimum wage) -- but oh, the satisfaction. AND the thankfulness to God for bringing us all the way back! (Yes, there were several PTL's typed along the way -- which brought no response from anyone.)

This marked our third online win in a full-tournament format. The last one was with NBC Sports 11/10/09 -- and the next day, NBC Sports had merged into NLOP. We're thankful to report NLOP remains in business, after our latest win.

We outlasted 182 other players, in our 220th full NLOP tournament. Given those numbers, perhaps we finally were due mathematically to win. But we came in second twice in April, and had a fifth-place finish only four days before. So maybe we're finally figuring something out.

P.S. The win gave us enough NLOP points to qualify for tonight's weekly championship with big money on the line. Watch this space....