Poker Night 230: My Weekly Reader

"The best liar wins at poker. The best player doesn't," someone declared at our table tonight at Lil Kim's Cove. Part of the strategy, uh, lies in figuring out when your opponent means business and when he doesn't. We were reminded of this right away....

BLINDS: 25/50

IN THE POCKET: A-J of clubs

It's the first hand of the night and we have a chance to seize the lead, so we announce: "200 more."

"Already?" the player to our right asks. Why, sure - and about half the table calls.

ON THE FLOP: A-3-5 (3 is a club)

It looks good to us, so we make a continuation bet of 300. Two players call it.

"That's a good bet," says an opponent to our left. But then he adds, "Be careful. I've got two pair."

ON THE TURN: 3

"Now I've got a boat," our big talker continues. But we've heard this kind of tune before from this man, and we're not buying it. So we bet 400 ahead of him. He calls; the other man in the hand folds.

ON THE RIVER: 7

We're feeling modestly confident. But just in case our opponent actually is telling the truth, we limit our bet to 500.

"I missed the boat," our opponent admits as he folds - and we gain more than 2,000 chips right away.

"If I had raised, would you have called?" the man then asks. "If I had gone all-in, would you have called?"

"Wellllll...." is all we say. Others at the table guess we would have folded. What would you have done?

We won another nice pot later, to reach the one-hour break at 13,500 chips. But the second hour was a roller-coaster ride. We lost several thousand chips with two pair to a man with a straight. Then we made a flush on the river, after going all-in. We guessed an opponent was bluffing with a big bet, but his two pair topped ours. Then we pushed with A-6 after seeing an Ace on the flop, and it topped a man with A-2.

But the wild ride finally stopped when we were dealt A-K and raised to 5,000 with it. An opponent went all-in, and we had to call with 10,000 left. He showed K-J - and a Jack on the flop was good enough for him to eliminate us in 22nd place.

MINISTRY MOMENT: "Is that a real dollar?" a man to our right asked before the game began. No, it wasn't - he'd spotted our "Lord's Supper" card protector.

"Do you believe in Jesus?" we asked the man. He said he did -- and we sincerely hope you do.

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 93 final tables in 230 nights (40.4%) - 15 cashes.

NATIONAL LEAGUE OF POKER TOTAL: Full tournaments - 117 point wins in 598 games (19.6%), 44 final tables, 3 cashes.

We mentioned in another post our second-place finish Tuesday night - but earlier today, we almost made the final table in a big tournament again! We finished 11th out of 622.

POKER STARS.NET TOTAL: Pretend cash games - $42,657, up $3,850.