Poker Day 428: Nice While It Lasted

The local poker rooms must be doing well these days.  The monthly Sunday special at Arrowhead Poker (which apparently has taken back its old name, after being River City Poker Room for awhile) had a $1,000 guaranteed prize pool today.  That guaranteed some serious action at times....

BLINDS: 500/1,000

IN THE POCKET: A-Q offsuit

We won a couple of early pots, then lost a bundle when a straight we hit on the river ran into someone else's flush.  From a starting stack of 50,000, we're down to about 26,500.

Now we have the Dealer button at a table of seven, and a man two seats ahead of us raises all the way to 12,000.  We look at these strong starting cards and face a big decision.  If we call this big bet, we might as well be committed to going all-in with them.  So we call in hope -- only to find the lead player, a late arrival to the table, raising all-in for more than 40,000!

Other players are folding, but the man who raised ahead of us decides to call.  Realizing we dared to step into a deep swamp in the first place, we can't really fold now.  The cards simply are too strong.  So we call for our last 14,500.

The players who folded talk about their hands as the dealer sorts out the pots.  We hear at least one (maybe two) talk about having Queens.  That's potential trouble.  Then comes turnover time.  The raiser two seats ahead of us has 9-9.  The all-in man across the table shows K-J suited.  The race is on....

ON THE FLOP: Q-2-8

"There's a Queen," we declare - as if no one else at the table knows.  We seize the lead, and clap our hands a few times.

ON THE TURN: K

That's a King -- and more big trouble.  The man across the table now leads, and we need an Ace or a third Queen to stay alive.

ON THE RIVER: K

Running Kings give the third-place man a win at the wire -- and he takes two players out in the process.

"I'm surprised he pushed with that," another man at the table says.  It truly was daring -- but it worked.  Come to think, maybe we should have pushed earlier.  An all-in bet before the K-J player's turn might have pulled him off, to our benefit.  But what's done is done -- and we're "done," tied for 21st place.

MINISTRY MOMENT: We somehow misplaced the "card protector" we put in our pocket for this game. So we reached into the car, and pulled out a small towelette packet from a restaurant.

"I brought this to remind me," we told a man who asked about it, "that I should stay clean and pure -- just as Jesus did."

"That reminds you of that?!?!" The man apparently thought we were bluffing.  But any little thing can be a good reminder of walking a Christian walk....

....And do not share in the sins of others.  Keep yourself pure. - I Timothy 5:22b

Perhaps you're as skeptical as that man next to us at the table.  What do purity and poker-playing have in common?  They can have a lot -- for instance, if you don't curse or drink alcohol to excess.  The main poker rooms where we play these days have no alcohol.  On the other hand, the WPT Amateur League location where we started in our current city was a bar -- and it's apparently now out of business.

He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to a idol or swear by what is false.  He will receive blessing from the Lord and vindication from God his Savior. - Psalm 24:4-5

That blessing may not always be financial, as in a final table.  Believers should look for the ultimate blessing - eternal life, ruling with Jesus Christ.

So where did our discussion go from here?  It turns out a surprising blessing came minutes later.  We'll get to that in a future post.

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 151 final tables in 428 games (35.3%) - 25 cashes.  After starting 2014 five-for-five in reaching final tables, we've only reached one of the last six.