Poker Night 200: Speak of the Devil

To mark our 200th live tournament, we returned tonight to where we began. Lil Kim's Cove is walking distance from home, as opposed to a short drive for Hookahmeup -- and since the prize money now is the same at both places, we prefer to keep the car parked. Now how much gas would you put on this hand?

BLINDS: 200/400

IN THE POCKET: A-5 offsuit

We split a pot early, but feeler bets since then have led to nothing. Holding about 3,700 chips, we give the Ace a try. We wind up heads-up with the big blind, and we're dealing....

ON THE FLOP: 6-6-6

"Devil of a flop," we declare. "Really a mark of the beast flop."

"Lord, have mercy," a woman out of the hand says. "And you dealt that?!" She knows about our Christian faith. Meanwhile, the player to our left checks.

"That Revelation just came to you!" we say with a pun as we review our cards (more for show than anything) and check. The section of the Bible which mentions 666 and the mysterious mark is Revelation 13.

ON THE TURN: 3

Our opponent checks. We're tempted to bet our Ace, but suspect our opponent might be hiding a full house. So we check again.

ON THE RIVER: 7

The big blind checks again. We still play it safe. "I only have Ace high," we admit. But that's good enough; our opponent throws away his cards without showing them and we win a modest pot.

The loser in that hand gained revenge on us after the one-hour break. We went all-in with A-5 when an Ace came on the flop. But a Queen was there as well, and another Queen with an 8 followed. That gave our opponent a full house, and sent us away in about 28th place.

MINISTRY MOMENT: "Take a look at this," a man said during the one-hour break. He'd called up a video on his cell phone -- and without going into detail, it looked possibly pornographic.

"No, thank you," we said turning away.

"It's not what you think," the man kept telling us -- but we still didn't want to look. "It was a man rubbing his eyeball," he finally explained. But the video started with such an extreme close-up, it was designed to be misleading.

"For someone who's a Christian, you have a dirty mind," the man then told us. Do we? Really? We're open to your comments on this; we'll explain our actions and response in an upcoming post.

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 83 final tables in 200 nights (41.5%) - 15 cashes.

NATIONAL LEAGUE OF POKER TOTAL: Full tournaments - 80 point wins in 446 games (17.9%), 34 final tables, 2 cashes. (Back to two, after our appeal was denied.)

POKER STARS.NET TOTAL: Pretend cash games - $20,944, up $650.