Poker Night 283: Back to the Bucks - UPDATED

The Tournament Director arrived late at Lil Kim's Cove Thursday night, so play began about 15 minutes behind  schedule.  But it was worth the wait for us -- as we finished in second place at our "home room" for poker!  It's our best showing there since July 2010, and earned us $25 in a settlement with the remaining player who had more chips.  (Normally first is $50 and second is a "bucket of beers;" the other man can enjoy the beers.)

We missed a flop with a promising early hand, and slipped to about 3,200 chips from a starting 5,000.  But a rally started when we were dealt "big slick" A-K and gained two pair on the flop.  An all-in bet against a loose-playing huge stack holding pocket 8's brought a nice profit.  Then pocket 5's in the big blind led to a third 5 on the flop, which brought another nice gain.  Those wins led to this....

 

BLINDS: 1,000/2,000

 

IN THE POCKET: 7-7

 

We've been moved to a table where a couple of players either are half-drunk, or acting that way.  We've advanced to about 30,000 chips -- and as best we recall (this hand wasn't recorded), no one raises pre-flop.

 

ON THE FLOP: 3s-7c-8c

 

"That didn't help anybody," a man to our left with a pitcher of beer and a bigger stack of chips declares.  We beg to differ with his opinion -- but instead of saying that, we lead off the betting at 4,000.  That man calls, and we're heads-up.

 

ON THE TURN: 10

 

We offer 4,000 again.  The man calls again -- and we're puzzled about what he has.

 

ON THE RIVER: Qc

 

This puts three clubs on the board.  We choose not to play scared, and turn up the heat a little by betting 5,000.  Our opponent raises to 10,000.  We've never played against this man before, but we're not convinced he's hit a straight or flush.  So we call.

 

"Two pair," the man announces -- hitting Q-10 on the river.

 

"Three sevens," we respond; "21."  Blackjack the hard way wins us a big pot, a bit of surprise from the player we beat -- and some constructive criticism from a man sitting to our right.

"You should have re-raised him."  The man noted that huge stack our opponent had.  A bidding war indeed might have cost him a lot of chips -- but we were wary that he actually might be disguising a huge hand, so we erred on the side of caution.

 

We held on from there, reaching the final table with about 45,000 chips.  After an explosive hand which sent three men out at once, pocket Jacks turned into a winning straight for us and a big gain.

 

Then with four players remaining, we dared to call an opponent's all-in bet with A-5.  He had K-Q; 5's came on the flop and turn -- and that man (dealing the cards) missed a club flush draw on the river.  The man threw down the deck in disgust and slowly left.  No, he did not offer to shake hands.

 

We walked home after three hours of poker a little fatter in the wallet -- and thankful to God for a night of poker success which seemed long overdue.  (No, we did not "Tebow.")

MINISTRY MOMENT: "I learned this in Bible class," a man told us during a discussion at the table.  "The way you can prove there is a God is that science has been able to reproduce everything about a human except the eye."

That sounded reasonable to us -- but another factor came to mind.  "Man can't make a brain come to life.  That takes God."

The other player didn't think so, suggesting scientists can make nerve endings come together so life can function.  "They've cloned a goat," he noted.  In fact, that feat occurred way back in the last millennium.

Now this is one deep topic for a poker table.  Cloning an animal is one thing -- but in our view, reproducing a human with the cognitive ability to think and reason (or even play poker) is something else.  The Bible indicates something more is needed for that....

For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him?  In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the spirit of God. - I Corinthians 2:11

Some ministers note the King James Version wording "the spirit of man," and say there's a "human spirit" which give us physical life.  When we die, that spirit returns to God for reinstalling when humans are resurrected.  But the "spirit of God" is different, opening our minds to understand how God wants us to live and operate.

As we say, this is a deep topic -- so we'll stop here and ask what you think of this.  Offer comments; we'll offer more in a future post.

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 103 final tables in 283 nights (36.4%) - 17 cashes.  This was our first final table since the end of October.

NATIONAL LEAGUE OF POKER TOTAL: Full tournaments - 181 point wins in 788 games (23.0%), 62 final tables, seven cashes.  We near the end of 2011 with five cash wins online, compared with two in live tournaments.

POKER STARS.NET TOTAL: Pretend cash games - $64,209, down $2,115.