Poker Night 181: Wait and See

And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will shew to you to day.... -- Exodus 14:13 (KJV)

Moses said this when Israel was fleeing Egypt, and appeared trapped at the Red Sea. What happened to us tonight at The Red Barn wasn't exactly that dramatic, but incredibly similar. The first hour of play was simply horrid for us. For example....

BLINDS: 100/200

IN THE POCKET: 10-10

We've barely played any hands all evening, because the cards have been ugly. But here we have a good-looking pair, so we raise to 500. Three other players call.

ON THE FLOP: A-A-9

The play checks to us, and we offer a classic continuation bet: 300. Two players take our "hint" and fold. A man to our immediate left does not, and calls.

ON THE TURN: J

Hmmm -- what's our opponent up to? Could he have a third Ace? We check, hoping to get an answer. He checks, so we don't.

ON THE RIVER: A

Yeow -- three Aces showing! We have a nice full house, but also a little insecurity. He could have quads, after all. But we dare to try one more "go-away" bet of 1,200.

"I have to call," our opponent says. "I have to show you this."

We show our 10's. He's not fazed. "You see, I hit two boats....." with a Jack and a 9! "You had one of them topped," he says to offer consolation -- but his Jacks beat our 10's.

Other chases (and perhaps a little moment of "on-tilt" desperation) failed as well, and we staggered to the one-hour break with only 875 chips. But after the "color-up" to 1,000, it was as if God told us to get out of the way -- because He was taking over our game:

+ A-5 all in led to an Ace on the board. We gained to 3,500.

+ A-10 all in won as well. We jumped to 7,000.

+ A-2 all in topped an opponent with face cards. We advanced to 10,000, and had enough chips to make the final table.

+ An all-in bet before the flop with Q-Q made the final table fold. Suddenly we were in the 13,000 range!

Proper folding beyond that helped us reach the final five. But the big run ran out there, as we pushed with a King in the big blind after a King landed on the flop. An Ace on the river gave a woman across from us a better pair. Yet what a rally it was -- coming back from the brink to finish tied for fourth! (We tied, because another player was eliminated with us.)


MINISTRY MOMENT: "I think I know why you have that," a believing friend next to us said about tonight's card protector. We used a small flashlight, which we obtained as a gift from a credit union several years ago.

"Light of the world," our friend guessed. Correct! (See Matthew 5:14, among other places.)

But we admitted during the evening we didn't bring the battery for the flashlight. We tend to leave them separate, only putting the battery inside if a power outage requires us to use the light. Yet at one point, our friend noticed the flashlight appeared to be on, anyway -- reflecting ceiling lights, apparently. There are good lessons in all of this. Think about it, and we'll make that a "light" topic for another day.

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 76 final tables in 181 nights (42.0%) - 15 cashes.