Poker Night 376: Color Me AQ-A

Call us scared if you wish, but we try to avoid driving on the night of New Year's Eve.  We take the warnings about drunk drivers seriously.  And since our usual Monday night poker stop is a bar, we had even more reason to be wary.  So we delayed our first live poker game this week to Wednesday.  Soho Bar and Grill has live bands, but we "faced the music" much earlier....

BLINDS: 100/200

IN THE POCKET: A-Q offsuit

We won an early pot with a pocket pair and good betting.  But after a few misses, we start this hand in the Big Blind with 6,300 chips.  Several players at this table of six have shown a tendency to raise pre-flop, but no one does it here.  So we do: "500 more."  Our raise attracts about three callers.

ON THE FLOP: 9-Q-A

"Big Blind specials" don't come much better than this!  But as we recall, two of the flop cards had matching suits.  So we get right to work, making a continuation bet of 1,000.  The remaining players call.

ON THE TURN: K

That's potential trouble, in terms of someone making a straight.  But we decide to keep our foot on the proverbial gas pedal, until someone indicates otherwise.  We bet 2,000.  That's too much for two players, who fold.  A man across from us calls.

ON THE RIVER: A

This gives us a full house, and an easy play to make.  "I'm all in," we announce -- for "1,600 Pennsylvania Avenue."  (Call it a White House?!)

"Here's your chance to take him out, and get a bounty," a man to our immediate left recommends.  Bounty tournament rules are in effect, with a 5,000-chip reward for eliminating a player.  In fact, the man who made the suggestion wound up taking an astonishing four bounties in the first hour of play.

But our opponent has some doubts about that suggestion.  "I know he's got an Ace," he says.  After pondering the decision for several seconds, he folds.  Our chip stack doubles to more than 11,000.

"I want to see what you had," the man at our left says.

"No, that's OK," we tell him politely.  Always looking for new blog readers, you know.

Our stack stayed firm until late in the first hour, when we had Ace of clubs and saw three clubs on the flop.  Chasing the flush cost us 4,000 chips -- but we missed.  That left us with 5,800 at the break.  Then in Hour 2, we saw A-J of hearts and decided to go all in again.  But the board didn't pair, and a man made a pair of 6's to knock us out.  We begin 2013 with an 18th-place finish.

MINISTRY MOMENT: For the first time in a long time, we brought our "Jesus as your Savior" coin for a card protector.  The young man to our immediate left said he agreed with the message.

"Is Jesus your Savior?" we asked.  The man said He was.  "What's He done for you lately?"

"I'm here," the man said.  "It's 2013, and I'm here."

That's a simple way to look at it -- but an accurate way:

The God who made the world and everything in it.... is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.... For in him we live and move and have our being. - Acts 17:24-25, 28

To borrow a quote from the last U.S. Presidential race: if you have eyes to read this blog, you didn't build that.  You might have the technical skill to build a computer for showing this screen, but human eyes are a testimony of God's amazing creation.  So is your life.

The Lord brings death and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and raises up. - I Samuel 2:6

Even that far back in Old Testament times, some believers in God (in this case a woman named Hannah) seemed to have an understanding of a coming resurrection.  Revelation 20 provides details of how that process will work.  Read it carefully and ask yourself: have you secured a place in the "first resurrection," by giving your life totally to God?

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 130 final tables in 376 nights (34.6%) - 20 cashes.