The good news about The Sports Page is that it's considered a restaurant, so under Georgia law smoking isn't allowed. The bad news is that you need to spend at least five dollars to get bonus poker chips. Our two-dollar cup of diet soda wasn't enough tonight, so we walked into our first poker night there since the end of October with a basic 5,000 chips. That meant careful play, until the right moment came....
BLINDS: 100/200
IN THE POCKET: 10-10
We haven't won a pot so far, yet cautious betting has brought us to the Big Blind with 4,375 chips. The table calls around to us, and we think about making a big raise -- but instead we check and wait.
ON THE FLOP: J-5-8
We didn't want to see that Jack show up. So we check, and a man across the table bets 700. It smells to us like an attempt to buy the pot, so we call. A woman to our left with a huge stack does as well.
ON THE TURN: 9
Hmmmm - suddenly we've stumbled into an open-ended straight draw. We check again, and the man across from us tries 1,200. Ooh boy, this smells like trouble -- but we're taking a stand, so we call. So does the woman. Now we quietly hope a third 10 does NOT show.
ON THE RIVER: Q
Thank you, Lord! With the straight made and no risk of a flush, we go all-in with our remaining 2,475.
"I've gotta call," the woman says. It's a bounty tournament, after all -- and eliminating us earns 5,000 bonus chips. The man across from us apparently had a lower pair, so he now folds.
"Do you have a 10?" we ask the woman.
"I've got two pair."
"I have a 10." Running cards for a surprise straight jumps us above 12,100 chips.
We reached the one-hour break with 11,000 -- then lost a big hand when A-10 fell to the woman's straight. But we rallied back by winning a pot with pocket Aces, then advanced to 33,000 by using K-J to make a "Broadway straight!"
That allowed us to coast to the final table, where bigger stacks collided to improve our standing. With five players left, we pushed in the Big Blind with 7-7 -- but a woman across from us with 8-8 eliminated us. Yet we went home satisfied. With no bonus chips to cushion us at all, we finished fifth -- our best result in a live tournament since late January.
MINISTRY MOMENT: It actually happened for us on the way to the game, as we stood in line at a discount store. We wound up behind a woman who had a cart full of groceries, and a body which only allowed her to unload dozens of cans very slowly.
"I'm open over here, if you don't have a return," a cashier a few aisles over said. But we couldn't move -- explaining we would have "flunked the test."
What test did we mean, and how could it apply to poker? Offer a comment with your answer; we'll compare notes in a couple of days.
UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 96 final tables in 249 nights (38.6%), 15 cashes.
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