Poker Night 219: Four the Win

Holding one big card in poker often isn't enough. The second card can matter. At The Red Barn tonight, we were reminded it can matter a lot.

BLINDS: 100/200

IN THE POCKET: A-4

After winning an early pot with pocket Aces, our chip count is back down to about our starting level of 6,000. We're "under the gun," first to act. This is a marginal hand to play, but the blinds are reasonable enough that we can "play any Ace" with hope. So we call, and no one around the table raises.

ON THE FLOP: 9-4-3

"We hit it," as they say at our tournaments -- but we didn't hit it very well. But we doubt anyone else did, either. We send out a "probing bet" of 200, and about half the table folds. Three others remain.

ON THE TURN: 10

That didn't help much. This time we check -- as do the other players.

ON THE RIVER: 4

Now that helped -- a lot! The players ahead of us check, but we won't. We bet 1,100. At least one man guesses we have a 4, but we say nothing. A player to our left calls.

"I've got two pair," a man to our right says, "but I'm not sure they're good enough." After thinking a moment, he calls.

"No, they're not good enough," we say showing our hand.

"I should have known you had a 4," that man admits as we gain about 2,500 chips.

We held on to that gain long enough to reach the final table (albeit on a night with only about 18 players). Then we went all-in with Q-J, caught a Queen on the river and jumped from 3,000 to 19,000!

That allowed us to stay around amid rising blinds -- and we finished fourth, for our best outcome since Thanksgiving week. The end came with a forced all-in bet in the big blind with 8-6, and nothing pairing.

MINISTRY MOMENT: The tournament director at The Red Barn likes to be a little "touchy-feely." Before tonight's game, he pretended to punch us around the waist, then follow up with other blows. We ducked, but didn't move beyond that.

"He probably could beat you up," another man said in our defense.

The director knows our works well. "But he'd turn the other cheek."

"But he'd eventually run out of cheeks."

We said nothing through all this. What do you say about it? Our thoughts will be in a future post.

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 90 final tables in 219 nights (41.1%) - 15 cashes. That's three final tables in the last four live tournaments.