Poker Night #272: You Keep Me Hanging On

A change in schedule this week moved up our local poker tournament to Monday. That meant a trip to The Red Barn in Phenix City, and a table where bigger was not always better. A flop of 2-2-2 gave one man quads. And then there was this hand....

BLINDS: 25/50

IN THE POCKET: Q-J offsuit

We're in the small blind, and no one is in a raising mood early in the game. So we call in hope, and almost the entire table gets in.

ON THE FLOP: J-10-6

Sitting in the leadoff position, we make a modest "come on in" bet of 150 with top pair. "Your Jack is no good," a man to our right says in response.

"It isn't?" we ask. (Was that a tell?)

"'Cause I've got a 6," he answers. We'll see if he's joking; he joins about three other players in calling.

ON THE TURN: Q

Now we have top two pair, so we turn up the heat and bet 450.

"Uh-oh. He must have something," a player across from us says. But she's already folded; two players call; the man who talked about his 6 folds.

ON THE RIVER: 10

This card opens up a lot of possibilities, but we don't feel threatened by it. Instead, we increase the bet in hopes of running everyone else away -- a bet of 600.

"Raise," a man to our immediate left says. Oops -- he doubles to 1,200, and we fear the worst. A man across the table calls.

"I think I know what you have," we say after a moment. "But I have to see if you have it."

We call and hope for a bluff.-- except it's not. He shows a third 10; the river card paid off for him.

"I couldn't run away from the pot," he notes; "I had a straight draw." His other card was a 9.

While we hit a river of our own minutes later to make a winning spade flush, that's how our night went. We endured with cautious play to the semifinal table, but folded 8-10 when it turned into a potential two-pair winner. Forced to go all-in with 9-10 in the Big Blind, we missed the board and were sent packing in 16th place.

MINISTRY MOMENT: "I see you brought something for people to cry on," a man joked before the game. Our card protector tonight was a small travel-size package of facial tissues. He made a good guess -- but that's not why we brought it.

"I brought it to remind me," we explained, "that when Jesus comes back, there will be no more tears and no more crying." (Revelation 21:3-4)

The man seemed to understand what we meant. "Do you believe Jesus is coming back?" we probed further.

"Eventually," he said. That's actually a better answer than some radio preachers offered earlier this year. We'll have a link in our next post to a big event this week, which celebrates Jesus's second coming.

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 100 final tables in 272 nights (36.8%) - 15 cashes. This is getting ridiculous; 11 final tables missed in a row, and only two in the last 17.

NATIONAL LEAGUE OF POKER TOTAL: Full tournaments - 166 point wins in 738 games (22.5%), 57 final tables, 7 cashes. UFC 3-card knockout - 2 final tables in 13 games, 1 win.

POKER STARS.NET TOTAL: Pretend cash games - $59,718, up $1,885.