Monday, June 6, 2011

Poker Night 255: Thou Shalt Not Steal

The Sports Page's "clock" for Texas Hold 'em allows a generous amount of time for each round of blinds -- giving patient players more time to wait for the right moment. We were in a position tonight where we needed that wait.

BLINDS: 50/100

IN THE POCKET: A-K offsuit

Some people say they can't stand to see these cards, because they frequently don't win. We learned why earlier tonight, losing a lot of chips to a woman who hit two small pair on the flop. Sitting second in line with only 2,625 chips, we choose to limp in with these big cards. But a woman in the big blind raises to 900, and we decide we can't hold back.

"I'm all-in," we announce -- for 1,725 more. The big blind calls. Everyone else scrams. The good news for us: she has K-J -- which means in a way, we was trying to steal the pot pre-flop. Now if the cards will kindly cooperate....

ON THE FLOP: 4-7-5

The cards are dealt very quickly -- with no TV drama.

ON THE TURN: A

ON THE RIVER: 8

"Thank you very much. I needed that," we say to the woman. We make up our earlier loss with a pair of Aces, returning to about 5,100.

We split a pot after that with a full house -- but otherwise, good cards were hard to find for us. We pushed all-in again with A-9 and 2,500 left, but another woman made a straight to top our pair of 9's. On a night when there was a waiting list to join a table, we exited in about 24th place.

MINISTRY MOMENT: Someone at our main table mentioned Jesus in an exclamatory way.

"He's my hope of salvation," we said. No one pursued the subject with us. Maybe next time?!

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 98 final tables in 255 nights (38.4%) - 15 cashes.

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