Poker Night 287:Scare You, Scare Me

"It's OK.  It's all right./ I'm gonna take your chips tonight."  That was the song a player tried to sing tonight at Lil Kim's Cove.  (We hereby claim the words, since we doubt he plans to go to Nashville and become a country songwriter.)  If we wanted to sing along with him, we'd have to make some big and accurate decisions.  Take this example....

BLINDS: 1,000/2,000

IN THE POCKET: Q-3 of clubs

We've made it to a six-player semifinal table, thanks largely to a big blind double-up in the first hour with K-K.  We've hung on from there, beginning this hand with 6,500 chips.  The bad news is we're Small Blind - but the good news is that no one raised ahead of us.  In fact, only one player called.  These cards are marginal, but we decide to follow the classic poker reasoning: "They were suited."  We call.  The Big Blind mysteriously folds, so we're heads-up.

ON THE FLOP: 2c-2s-4s

An uglier flop than this is hard to find.  We need a lot of help, so we check prepared to fold.  Our opponent checks, too.

ON THE TURN: 3s

"Any bet wins, any bet wins," suggests the Big Blind.  Hmmm -- we now have two pair and a fairly good kicker.  So let's see if his advice is right.  We bet the minimum 2,000 -- but we get called.

ON THE RIVER: Ah

That's not exactly the card we wanted to see.  What if our opponent is sitting on Ace-high?  This time we check.

"I'm all-in," he announces -- with far more chips than the 2,500 we have left.  Uh-oh.

We stare at our opponent for a moment.  Then we laugh a bit, to break up any tension.  The man offers no help, as we think this move over.  We decide he pushed simply to make us chicken out.

"I'll call," we say with a smile -- ready to accept things either way.  "I have a 3."

But our opponent shows 6-6.  He has a better top pair, and he has us packing the tent.  We're eliminated in 14th place -- and another reminder that hunches don't always work.

MINISTRY MOMENT: "Is that a piece of trash?" the Big Blind said as we arrived at the semifinal table.

"Actually, it's a bandage," we explained.  It was our card protector for the evening -- and of course, it had a purpose.

"I brought this to remind me that Jesus is a healer," we told the man a couple of minutes later.  "Do you believe God can heal?"

The man said he did.  "He can raise the dead," he noted -- which reminded us of a miracle which was pointed out to us in a Bible study group earlier in the week.

....Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!"  The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.  Jesus said to them, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go." - John 11:43-44

An old church story says Jesus specified Lazarus - or else every dead person would have come out.  As the Son of God, Jesus had that power.  But He only used it on rare occasions - not even to restore John the Baptizer after his beheading.  So why here, and why now?  Lazarus was a friend of Jesus, who had been dead four days (verse 39).  But more importantly....

So they took away the stone.  Then Jesus looked up and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me.  I know that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me." - John 11:41-42

Jesus the Son was sent to Earth by God the Father.  He was sent with many purposes.  In this case....

....Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death.  No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it." - John 11:4

Many Jews believed in that glory, and put their faith in Christ after seeing this miracle (verse 45) - but others had seen more than enough, and plotted His execution (verse 53).  Which side would you have been on?

We know of several people fighting seemingly losing battles against cancer right now.  We pray that God might heal them, but realize the answer might be no.  That's why we put faith in another statement Jesus made in this chapter:

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never died.  Do you believe this?" - John 11:35-36

Our exact question to you.

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 105 final tables in 287 nights (36.6%) - 17 cashes.

NATIONAL LEAGUE OF POKER TOTAL: Full tournaments - 185 point wins in 801 games (23.1%), 63 final tables, 7 cashes.  One-table sit-n-goes - 8-13-10-3-3.

We're finding the new browser version of NLOP is much easier to play than the downloadable program.  Hiccups and delays are down sharply.  But the format change has included tougher standards for winning points -- more in line with the "top ten percent" practiced by real poker rooms.  Yet earlier in the day, we had a top-40 finish in a 655-player tournament.  Our 3,000-point buy-in earned us 5,857.

POKER STARS.NET TOTAL: Pretend cash games - $67,754, up $2,130.