BLINDS: 25/50
IN THE POCKET: K-Q offsuit
We're in the big blind after gaining a big blessing -- as the bartender gave us 6,000 bonus chips simply for our buying diet cola. But we lost a lot of that early, and now have about 8,200. And the dealer puts more of that at risk, by raising to 250. With pretty high cards, we call. So do a couple of other players.
ON THE FLOP: K-10-4
We reach for 300, as we have top pair and are first in line to....
"You didn't let me bet, man!" says a player to the immediate right of the dealer. He'd put in 50, but was passed over for the raise.
We put the 300 back in our tray. The dealer tries to cover the flop cards with one hand, and a short discussion ensues across tables about the rules. "If you call, the flop goes back. If you fold, the flop stays out," one player (not the tournament director) advises.
"I wanted to call," says the ignored player. We quietly hope he doesn't now -- and after some thinking/grumbling, he folds. Now the flop is official, and we put 300 back out.
"I didn't want you to have a King, man." Now the dealer is grumbling. "I've got Jacks."
"Oh. That's too bad," we say -- then quickly realize what those words might reveal. "But it might really be good," we add, "because I might have nothing."
"He wouldn't have bet unless he had something," says another man across from us. (We took advantage of that mindset to win another hand later with a bluff.) So does the dealer. A woman to our left calls, and we're heads-up.
ON THE TURN: J
The dealer grumbles a bit louder at the potential three-of-a-kind he lost. But we press on: "300 more." The woman folds, and the pot is ours. But someone wants to see what the last card would have been.
ON THE RIVER (not counting): 9
"I would've had a straight!" A player shows the Queen he threw away. We then show our cards -- and we would have split the pot with matching straights. Instead, we gain around 900 chips.
We won a couple of pots, then tried to hold on from there in the second hour. But with five players left at the semifinal table and A-9 in our hand with rising blinds, we were compelled to go all-in for our last 1,500. The board didn't pair for us, and a man on the other side took out another player along with us. We missed the final table by one hand again, finishing in a tie for ninth (ninth place in Big Dog Poker points).
MINISTRY MOMENT: We showed our "Jesus as your Savior" coin to the woman who took us on early in the evening. "A man in a motorcycle club gave that to me," we said.
"We had our bike blessed," the woman responded. It belonged to her and her ex-husband, and it was blessed at a motorcycle rally.
Does that sound strange -- having someone "bless" your motorcycle? It's a growing trend in some religious groups to hold "blessing" services for all sorts of items, from vehicles to pets. We have yet to find anything in the Bible specifically about blessing those things -- but Jesus set an example along that line:
He said to them, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these".... And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them. - Mark 10:14, 16We've attended many congregations which have "blessing of children" ceremonies at least once a year. May we dare suggest young people need God's blessing much more than motorcycles?
(Some of you may be saying at this point we skipped over a verse. Don't worry -- we'll get to that in an upcoming post.)
UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 102 final tables in 281 nights (36.3%) - 16 cashes. This makes four times since mid-September that we've missed the final table by one hand. Had we made them all, our percentage would be close to 38.
NATIONAL LEAGUE OF POKER TOTAL: Full tournaments - 176 point wins in 779 games (22.6%), 60 final tables, seven cashes.
NLOP seems to be eliminating the three-card "knockout" poker tournaments, as UFC sponsorship appears to be gone. But we'll never forget the first time we played it on a Saturday night -- and won the tournament!
POKER STARS.NET TOTAL: Pretend cash games - $67,207, down $1,045.
No comments:
Post a Comment