BLINDS: 100/200
IN THE POCKET: Ace of spades - King of hearts
To fully appreciate this hand, we need to explain the previous one. We held A-J, and called a pre-flop raise of 1,500. The flop was Q-J-x, and we called another bet of 1,500. When the turn brought an Ace, we went all in with 2,875 left. A man to our left called (the bettor folded), and our two pair had his Q-9 topped. The river missed for him, and we jumped to around 15,000 chips.
So we're dealing this hand at a six-player table, with a messy pile of unstacked chips in front of us. No one raises pre-flop -- and when we see these two big cards, we raise 1,000. The small blind folds. The big blind (who challenged us in the previous hand) wants to get even.
"Pressure busts pipes," he says. "I'm all in." Interesting words from a man who's been dropping 2,000-chip raises pre-flop from time to time tonight.
A woman to his left thinks about this situation for a long time -- so long that we're able to stack our chips, and the re-raiser asks a passer-by for a clock. At last she folds. So do two other players, leaving it up to us.
"So you decided to go all-in...."
"Is that a rhetorical question?" the pusher asks.
"Well, we could mean it both ways," we admit. We're simply being talkative, because this decision strikes us as easy. We think he's pushing with any two cards he sees, to scare us out of investing our new-found riches. But our two cards are too good.
"I call," we finally say -- and show the A-K.
"Good call," the man quietly responds. But he doesn't show what he has.
ON THE FLOP: Jc-4c-3c
Uh-oh -- all clubs?!? We don't have one. Now our opponent reveals he pushed with 7-7. Poker pros call this a "coin flip," and he's leading.
ON THE TURN: 8
Ugh. We're down to one card and six outs.
ON THE RIVER: Q
Talk about easy come, easy go! Our opponent has more than 18,000 chips, so he wins all of ours and takes us out of the game. Right after a huge win, we're busted -- sixth place out of the original table of eight.
The sudden turnabout had us pondering all the way home. Would we have done anything differently? Probably not. One of Gus Hansen's poker books reveals he actually has folded A-K a few times, after whiffing on the flop. But pre-flop?! One ranking puts A-K as the fourth-best hand to have -- while 7-7 is a deceptively-high #10.
MINISTRY MOMENT: For some reason, the table talk turned to abbreviations tonight.
"P-2-P. Pay to play," a man said. "P-2-L - pay to learn."
"Then there's P-T-L," we noted. "Praise the Lord. Something we should do all the time."
The man who brought up the subject agreed with that. But sadly, he somewhat admitted at the start of the tournament he was drunk -- drinking at Soho all day because of something involving a woman.. The Bible is clear on this matter:
Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral.... nor drunkards.... will inherit the kingdom of God. - I Corinthians 6:9-10There's much more to that list of vices, and we encourage you to review it with an open mind and heart. We're focusing on the drinking part -- and the good news is that people who hit the bottle too much are not without hope. Paul goes on to write....
And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. - I Corinthians 6:11Let the living waters of the Holy Spirit replace alcohol in your life. You'll be far less likely to have any regrets later.
UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 108 final tables in 305 nights (35.4%) - 17 cashes. We've missed nine final tables in a row.
NATIONAL LEAGUE OF POKER TOTAL: Full tournaments - 212 point wins in 883 games (24.0%), 70 final tables (7.9%), 7 cashes.
We've reached the points nine times in 19 tries in the last two weeks, and last week had two "top five" finishes -- the best one a third-place finish out of 320 players (but with only first place winning money).
POKER STARS.NET TOTAL: Pretend cash games - $74,789, up $3,455.
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