Poker Night 367: Kicking for the Swans

We confess we're big fans of Australian Rules Football.  The current champion club is the Sydney Swans.  Some poker pros refer to 2's as "Swans".  With all of this as background, look at a hand we dealt tonight at Lil Kim's Cove....

BLINDS: 500/1,000

IN THE POCKET: A-Q

"Hey wait," you're saying, "these aren't swans."  Be patient with us here.  We've dealt ourselves two high cards in the second hour of play.  We won several pots in the first hour, to reach the break at 16,500 chips.  With 11 players remaining, we decide to limp in at this semifinal table of five.  No one raises.

ON THE FLOP: 2-K-J

There's a swan, but the two high cards look more important to us.  We have a draw for the top straight.  The Small Blind leads off by betting the minimum 1,000.  One man calls, then we decide to do the same.

ON THE TURN: A

Now we feel better, as we have top pair.  The Small Blind bets 1,000 again.  The man between us calls.  Cool -- we'll lay low and call again.

ON THE RIVER: 2

That pairs the board, but we have top two pair and top kicker.  Yet the Small Blind increases her bet to 3,000.  The man in the middle folds.  We think she has an Ace, but our kicker will win.  So we call.

"I have an Ace."

"QUADS!" the woman yells.  Yeow -- she turns over 2-2!  It's no wonder she kept betting, because she led us all the way.  The Swans win it all again - as the Small Blind seizes a big pot, plus a 5,000-chip bonus for quads.

"You never saw that coming," the winner's husband (sitting in Big Blind position) tell us.  He's absolutely right.  We wound up being overconfident to a fault.

That big win launched the woman on an amazing tear, as she won six hands in a row -- including one where we made a full house with "4's over Jacks," but she won with "Jacks over 4's."  But with only enough players for two tables (which we think happened because Lil Kim's Cove was unable to show an Atlanta Falcons football game on its TV screens), eliminations at the other side of the room brought us to the final table with 8,500 chips.

We had hopes of making a move at the final table with A-8, but a big raise forced us to fold.  We finally were forced to go all-in with J-9 in the Small Blind, and the board didn't pair for us.  We wound up in eighth place, which admittedly is only "mid-list" with 16 players on hand.  But it still counts as our fourth final table in the last five live nights.

MINISTRY MOMENT: A player across from us wore a T-shirt with President Barack Obama's picture (similar to this one).  We couldn't resist asking him about one of the biggest show business controversies of the week.

"So do you agree with what Jamie Foxx said about President Obama?" we asked him.  The man didn't know what we meant.  "He called President Obama his 'Lord and Savior.'"

"No, I don't believe that," he said.  But as we expected, we sparked a conversation.

"Did he mean that as a joke?" asked a man sitting to our right.  (He'd asked at the start of the evening to be mentioned in this blog - so there it is.)

"He said it was a joke," we answered.  But a large number of Christians haven't taken it that way; some have declared Foxx a "moron" for his comment, while others accuse him of blasphemy.

It's certainly not the sort of joke we would tell, because we believe what the Bible says....

"You are my witnesses," declares the Lord.... "Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me.  I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from me there is no savior." - Isaiah 43:10-11

But here's what puzzles us.  Why are some Christians condemning Foxx for his remarks, when plenty of conservative talk show hosts and bloggers have sarcastically called President Obama "Messiah" (based on a statement by Louis Farakkhan of the Nation of Islam) without receiving similar criticism?

Perhaps the logic is that the Christian critics "know" the conservatives are joking, while they suspect deep-down Foxx is serious.  But after thinking it over, we've concluded there's a double standard here.  If such attempts at "holy humor" are wrong for one, they should be wrong for all.

You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. - Exodus 20:7

When we talk about the things of God, we should be careful with our words -- since God's Son will be the final judge over all of us:

....That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. - Philippians 2:10-11

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 128 final tables in 367 nights (34.9%), 20 cashes.

NATIONAL LEAGUE OF POKER TOTAL: Full tournaments - 273 point wins in 1,248 games (21.9%), 85 final tables, 10 cashes, 10 wins.  No-River Hold 'em - 20 point wins in 71 games (28.2%), 15 final tables, 1 cash win.

Points remain hard to claim in full tournaments.  We had three "top ten percent" finishes in the last week, which would have earned money in casinos - but they also again occurred in money-only games.  And a final-table finish of seventh in a 39-player qualifier Tuesday night also missed, because only the top five earned points.  But earlier in the day, a No-River tournament earned us plenty of points; we finished fifth out of 85 players.

POKER STARS.NET TOTAL: Pretend cash games - $84,260, down $1,778.