Sunday, November 10, 2013

Poker Day 414: O-No-Maha

If the game is nothing but Texas Hold 'em, we probably can hold our own.  But add other games, and things could be different.  The current Sunday format at River City Poker Room has alternating blinds: first Texas Hold 'em, then high-hand Omaha.  That meant things started well for us today.  And then....

BLINDS: 200/400

IN THE POCKET: J-J-3-2 (Omaha)

We own an early pot with A-3, when the Ace paired.  But in the last hand, we lost several thousand chips with Q-J-9-8.  Even though the board showed J-10-A-8 to give us a well-hidden straight (you can only use two of your four cards to make a hand in Omaha), an Ace on the river gave a man to our left quad Aces.

Surely that can't happen again, so we raise to 1,000 with a good pocket pair.  About half the players at our table of six calls.

ON THE FLOP: K-10-6 (third card may not be precise)

The flop is a rainbow, which works to our advantage.  But without top pair, we decide to play carefully instead of making a continuation bet.  We check; so do everyone else.

ON THE TURN: K

The board pairs -- but we suspect someone with a King would have bet by now.  So sitting first in the order, we bet 700.  A player in the middle of the table folds, but a man on the other side calls.

ON THE RIVER: K

A third King gives us a full house, and we see no need to hesitate.  We bet 3,000.

"I'll raise," our opponent says -- a double to 6,000.  This is a bit puzzling.  He probably has a pocket pair for his own full house, but ours is too high to let go.  We have to call.

And then.... the man shows a King.  Quads again!  We lose to a huge hand for the second time in a row.  He gets a $50 cash bonus, while we reach the conclusion this is not our day.

It turned out a third person at our table hit quads during the same Omaha blind -- but it wasn't us.  Our stack weakened to the point where we went all-in for our next 1,000 minutes later playing Texas Hold 'em with A-3 of hearts.  The blind was A-4-4 -- but of course, that gave another player three of a kind.  His 4's made us hit the door, with a badly-wounded 12th place.

MINISTRY MOMENT: "This is GOD'S day, sir!" the dealer at another table exclaimed at one point.  "Don't use language like that on God's day."

This dealer has a habit of being very irreverent -- throwing out comic insults (at least in his mind) without regard to race, gender or religion.  But we used that moment to comment to the players at our table, out of his earshot.

"Some of us went to church yesterday.  That's why we're here on Sunday."

We've mentioned here before that we keep a seventh-day Sabbath because that's what God instructed in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:8-11), and it's the example Jesus set ....
He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom.  And he stood up to read. - Luke 4:16


Our study Bible says Jesus set an example of "regular worship."  That's true -- but the Bible specifies he kept Sabbaths in the synagogue, which many Jews do to this day.

Yet as we think about it, the dealer could in one sense be right.  That's because of another Bible verse....
This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. - Psalm 118:24


We've heard some preachers mention this on the Sabbath, and try to confine this verse to one day of the week.  Our study Bible notes it also could be "a reference to Passover or the Feast of Tabernacles."

But hold on -- didn't God create every day of the week?  Genesis 1-2 shows He created all seven of them.  So we think the point of the verse in Psalm is to give God thanks for every day, rejoicing that He's given us one more day to live.  In this season of U.S. Thanksgiving Day, it's something to consider -- being thankful on more than one Thursday in November.

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 145 final tables in 414 games (35.0%) - 24 cashes.


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