Poker Night 163: Q's As in Lose

Our Memorial Day poker tournament at The Red Barn included one of those memorable hands you might see only once in a lifetime. But we don't want to give away the plot:

BLINDS: 50/100

IN THE POCKET: Q of clubs - Q of spades

We're in the small blind with a potentially big hand. The play calls to us, and we raise 400. A couple of other players call.

ON THE FLOP: Kh-Qh-Qd

Potentially?!?! We have just hit quad Queens on the flop!!!! But we're first to act, and remember a Big Dog Poker rule: you can only claim a 5,000-chip bonus for quads or a straight flush if the hand lasts through the river card. So we play dumb and check.

The Tournament Director sits across from us, and bets 600. A woman to our right raises to 1,200. We call. So does the Director. Poker face is turned on.

ON THE TURN: 4d

We innocently check again. So does the Director. But the woman to our right bets 1,500.

"1,500?!" we ask, pretending to show stunned disbelief. With a sigh, we call. The Director does as well. Sweet.

ON THE RIVER: Ah

The appearance of this card assures us the quad bonus. But since our neighbors are in such a betting mood, we check once more to them. The Director checks. Now the woman bets 1,800.

"1,800 more?!?!" we say in the same tone of voice. But we notice at this point something unusual -- top three hearts are on the board. A royal flush is possible. But that's so unlikely, and we've quietly dominated this hand all along!

We pretend to bumble with the chips a bit as we call. The Director amazingly calls again. Now comes the big moment for us to announce our quads: "Q is...."

"This has never happened to me before," the woman interrupts, "but I have a straight flush!"

Shock of shocks -- she has J-10 of hearts! She was on an open-ended straight flush draw, and wound up with a ROYAL flush to top our quads!! The gold chip for a 5,000 bonus goes to her. We get nothing but words of consolation.

The Tournament Director had 3-4 of hearts, for a flush of his own. "If this was a casino, everybody would have won," he says. Some poker rooms have "bad beat jackpots" for the worst loss of a tournament. He called this the "worst of all bad beats." Oh yeah -- we agree.

(So put yourself in our chair -- how would you have reacted to this moment? We'll reveal what we did in our next post.)

That hand obviously cost us a lot of chips -- but minutes later, Q-Q came our way again. This time we simply called. But when the flop showed J-J-8, we pushed all-in with 1,425 left. Trouble was, the Tournament Director had a Jack. His three of a kind eliminated us in 17th place. But if you have to get bounced from a tournament early, it might as well be in a way that will have people talking.

MINISTRY MOMENT: That woman who hit the royal flush is one of the few poker players we've met who's able to talk somewhat about the Bible. We had a follow-up discussion with her tonight about last Monday night's chat concerning salt and light.

"I thought you said He was the salt of the earth," the woman said. She misheard us. Jesus actually said in Matthew 5:13, "You are the salt of the earth...." We promised to double-check for verses where God or Jesus is called salt -- and we found none.

But both Jesus and you qualify for the "light of the world" title. Jesus called Himself that in John 8:12, then added: "He that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." Christians need to be mirrors, reflecting the light of their Lord.

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 66 final tables in 163 nights (40.5%) - 11 cashes. A streak of six consecutive final tables ends. The hard way.