An angry crowd of people wanted to put Jesus to death well before Calvary. "But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way" (Luke 4:30).
What happened to us at Lil Kim's Cove wasn't quite that dangerous -- but we endured an onslaught of big-betting poker players to the end, and finished in second place! Perhaps we should have seen it coming early in the tournament....
BLINDS: 25/50
IN THE POCKET: 7-7
We're one off the button, at a table filled with people who love to make big pre-flop raises. But in this hand, the players merely call. Fine by us; we do the same.
ON THE FLOP: 7-10-2
Very fine by us. And it helps our slow-playing cause that our sumo-wrestling trainee "Buddha" bets 500 ahead of us. We call; everyone else folds.
ON THE TURN: 7
That's not simply fine -- that's fantastic! We make quads for the second time in four live tournaments! But remember the rules: the hand must be played to the river to get a quad bonus. So when Buddha bets 500 more, we say in a semi-reluctant tone: "500 more."
ON THE RIVER: 6
Buddha may be fearing he's outgunned, because he now checks.
"I'm all-in," we announce -- and Buddha throws in his cards before we can finish counting chips. Then we show our 7-7, for 5,000 bonus chips. Unlike last week, it draws an almost who-cares reaction from the table.
That was the only hand we won in the first hour, and we had 9,000 chips at the break. Then we made a move early in the second hour with two big pot wins, including an all-in bet with two pair. But rising blinds and small losses drained us again, and we dropped to a minimum 500 chips. Yet helped in part by confusion over combining to a final table, we reached the second break with that 500 moments before the blinds came.
The second "color-up" jumped us from 500 to 5,000. We joked about how we wished our real-life investments could increase ten-fold like that. Then serious stuff happened in our favor: the real merger to the final table, and a draw putting us one behind the dealer to provide extra time. An all-in K-10 bet, which led to three 10's. Other players betting big to "steal pots," only to lose and go bust. A push which led to a "win" with three of a kind -- only to have our opponent say he'd topped us with a straight, but the cards were picked up before he could claim it.
An amazing double take-out with four players left (in a hand we folded) left us heads-up with about 40,000 chips! Then the Tournament Director proposed a settlement: our opponent (who the Director correctly noted had us "crushed" in chips) would get $40 and the Lil Kim's "bucket of beers." We'd get $10 for second place. Fine by us.... really fine.
The lesson from this is that the old phrase "a chip and a chair" is true in poker. Big comebacks from little stacks can happen. It's happened to us several times -- and we're thankful to God when they do.
MINISTRY MOMENT: "How many here believe in the tooth fairy?" the Tournament Director asked our table early in the second hour. Only a couple of hands went up. (Ours did not.) In their behalf, the director tossed a gold chip worth 5,000 on the table for the upcoming hand.
"How many believe in the Easter bunny?" the director asked next.
A woman to our left had a feisty answer: "I believe in Jesus!"
"Amen to that!" we said -- sharing a high-five with the woman. "And when Jesus comes, He'll bring something even better."
The woman admitted she wasn't sure about that. The rest of the table seemed stumped. Do you know what we're talking about? An upcoming post will explain.
UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 71 final tables in 172 nights (41.3%) - 13 cashes. Combined with Monday night at The Red Barn, we had a $15 week!
NATIONAL LEAGUE OF POKER TOTAL: Full tournaments - 53 point wins in 303 games (17.5%), 23 final tables, one cash.
POKER STARS.NET TOTAL: Pretend cash games -- $10,618, down $115.
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