We mentioned earlier this week that our poker-playing is reduced for awhile. In fact, tonight's tournament at Lil Kim's Cove was our last trip to a table since last week at Lil Kim's Cove. And one man wanted to make sure we didn't stick around long.
BLINDS: 25/50
IN THE POCKET: J-10 offsuit
It's the very first hand of the night - and we didn't even time to buy a soda for extra chips in advance. But that's OK; the table treats it as a "warm-up hand." Most players get in, with no one raising. We join them, sitting one behind the dealer.
ON THE FLOP: 3-4-J
Top pair looks promising, and the table checks to us. So we bet 200. Several players fold, except for a young man wearing a Chicago White Sox cap. He calls.
ON THE TURN: 2
Mr. ChiSox checks to us. It's still top pair, so we bet 200 again -- and are greeted with a raise of 1,000. Something tells us he's trying to run us off, so we call in hopes the river will settle all doubt.
ON THE RIVER: 6
That settles absolutely nothing -- as Mr. ChiSox drops his stack of chips on the table to go all-in. If he was on a straight draw, he could have hit it there.
"You have two pair, don't you?" a man across the table asks us. We say nothing -- but he points out something else our opponent could have. Or he still could have nothing, and is banking on what he perceives as our tendency to play cautious poker.
As Doyle Brunson once said to big early bettors on Poker After Dark: "First hand, gentlemen." Based on that, we choose to err on the side of caution and fold top pair. Too many cards simply could have beaten us.
Our opponent then shows one of his cards. "Ace high," he says. Yeah -- but what was low? We think we heard him say something about a 2, but we're still not sure.
Another man pushed against us on the very next hand when we held A-K -- except our big cards didn't pair on the board, and that fold was easier. Then we tried to be a bit aggressive and creative, without success. Then we folded 10-5 of diamonds before the flop -- only to see three diamonds come on the flop, costing us a huge comeback hand.
Bottom line: it simply was not our night. Forced to push in the big blind after the first hour with K-10, we missed again -- and finished in 16th place.
MINISTRY MOMENT: We were so stunned by how the first two hands went that we never had one tonight. But we took a little comfort in knowing this blog was a witness to the late Stephen King, whom we mentioned in the previous post.
UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 98 final tables in 257 nights (38.1%) - 15 cashes.
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