BLINDS: 50/100
IN THE POCKET: 8-8
Some call them snowmen. We call them "Oldsmobiles," because of the "Rocket 88" model. When you're in the big blind as we are and no one has raised, we also call them a pair worth hiding. We check with them, instead of raising.
ON THE FLOP: 4-5-7
Very nice -- a flop giving us an "over-pair" and a straight draw to boot. We make a lead bet of 300. About three players call it.
ON THE TURN: 4
We now have two pair, and don't really have the feeling someone else is holding a 4. But we repeat the relatively small bet of 300 to be sure. Only one other player stays in the hand -- a young woman across the table.
ON THE RIVER: 4
We advance to a well-disguised full house. But what if our opponent is hiding something better? We see no outward sign of concern, and bet 500.
"Raise," the woman announces -- up to 2,000. Hmmmm. Now it's thinking time. We lost a hand earlier in the evening to another woman who flopped a straight. Did this woman top our Olds with a "four-by-four"? Based on the size of her raise, we conclude she didn't.
"I'll call," we say showing our eights. Thankfully for us, the woman was trying to buy the pot.
"I had to bet," she explains to another player. "I hit the 5." Our full house beats hers, for a nice gain.
But a man at the table suggests she didn't bet enough. "If she had gone all-in, would you have folded?" he asks us.
Hmmmm again. "I would have thought about it," we answer after a moment -- making as non-committal and diplomatic a reply as we dare.
An all-in dare on our part later with pocket Queens tripled our stack to 19,000 chips. But we had to hang on from there to make the final table -- and on the first hand at that table, our push with A-6 lost to a woman with three of a kind. We finished ninth, in our first live tournament in almost three weeks.
MINISTRY MOMENT: The woman who eliminated us wore a blue wristband, which appeared to have a Bible reference on it. When we asked, she showed it. The words were "Philippians 4:13"....
I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.
The wristband also had a first name "Shawn" on it. The woman explained she works as a restaurant server, and was given the band by a regular customer. Shawn is that customer's teenage son, and is battling brain cancer.
That story admittedly put a sober turn on a nice evening. Will you join us in praying for Shawn (last name unknown) -- that God will strengthen him physically and spiritually, perhaps to grant him miraculous healing?
UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 83 final tables in 195 nights (42.6%) - 15 cashes.
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