Poker Night 276: Scary to be Alone

Since we don't keep Halloween, it's been our custom for years to get out of the house on that night and avoid the trick-or-treat pressure at the door.  This year, the path led us to The Red Barn in Phenix City -- where we're thankful to report the Monday night poker crowd had absolutely no one wearing costumes.  It was poker business as usual.  But could  we gain a profit at the end of the night?  A hopeful hand came early:

BLINDS: 50/100

IN THE POCKET: 8-9 of hearts

We're in the small blind - and after starting with 7,000 chips (thanks to one soda buy), we've dropped to around 5,600.  With no one raising, we call our suited connectors and think optimistically.

ON THE FLOP: 4h-7s-5d (suits may not be completely precise)

There are signs of hope here: three hearts, and a belly-buster straight draw.  We check, but a player across from us bets 200.  We call, as do a couple of others.

ON THE TURN: Js

So much for a flush chance -- but the straight chances just doubled.  We check again, and call another 200 bet by the man across from us.  The optimism continues.  If a 6 or 10 comes, we're ready.

ON THE RIVER: 6s

Ready, OK!  With the straight made all the way up to 9, we offer 400.  It's admittedly a wimpy-looking bet, in hopes someone will overconfidently try to bluff us out.  Sure enough, the man who bet all along now raises 2,200!  With little hesitation, we call.  So does a man to our left.

"I've got a straight," that man says as he shows an 8.

"Make mine '89," we say with a semi-smile -- admittedly borrowing a phrase from a slogan for an alcoholic beverage of years gone by.

The man across from us then stuns us.  "Flush," he declares -- showing two spades!  (We think they were Q-10.)  We were so focused on the straight that we never noticed three spades on the board.  Shame on us; good move for him.

That knocked us down to about 2,700 chips, and made things look bleak.  But things changed from there, as several pocket pairs came our way.  K-K brought a push at the start of the second hour, and "Kardashians" (borrowing from the news of the day) held up to bring a jump to 24,500.  Then came K-K again, which lost this time -- but A-A and a push on the flop allowed another strong gain.  We held on from there to make the final table.

Once there, Q-Q came -- and that turned into another winner.  At one point, our meager 2,700 had improved to 105,000!  A few losses followed that, along with rising blinds.  A final push with 5-5 fell short of a flush by one heart, but we wound up in fourth place.  Believe it or not, that's our best local finish (not counting the trip to Florida) since late January.

MINISTRY MOMENT: We showed our "Jesus as Your Savior" coin to a player, and he agreed with the message.  We didn't really get into our avoidance of Halloween; if you're curious about it and already planning for 2012, this article might be thought-provoking.

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 102 final tables in 276 nights (37.0%) - 16 cashes.  Now this is more like it: two top-five finishes in the last three live tournaments, and coming within two hands of four final tables in a row.