Poker Day 455: Eight is Enough?

On some days, the dealer in a poker tournament is your friend. On other days.... well, you have to get a bit creative.  Today's tournament at Arrowhead Poker definitely was the latter.

BLINDS: 500/1,000

IN THE POCKET: 5-6 of clubs

Two rounds are down, and we haven't won a pot yet. Promising starter hands such as K-10 have brought no success, especially after the flop.  Our starting stack of 62,000 chips is still not bad, starting at 55,500. And now we're in the Big Blind, with a chance to represent anything. But a player ahead of us raises to 2,500. We choose to defend, and about half the table of 10 is in.

ON THE FLOP: 7s-9c-3c

We're first in line to bet, and check.  A man on the other end of the table tosses out 16,000. Another man alongside him calls -- and we add up the score. There are nine cards that could give us a flush, plus three other 8's that could bring us a straight. That's 12/47 outs, a bit better than 25 percent. Based on that, we dare to call.  All other players are out.

ON THE TURN: 8s

Yes! We make a straight, but we check to the big bettors again -- and now the pushing comes.  Both opponents go for it, one holding around 55,000 chips.

"I don't have that much" but I'll call," we say - committing our last 37,000.

"I've got two pair," the man in the middle admits. He shows 8-9.

"I've got a straight," we say as we show.  The man in the middle exclaims an expletive at this sight.  The third man turns over A-J of clubs.  In a way, that's good; we feared someone might have J-10.  But now we're rooting against a flush, because the third man would have us topped.  One card to come....

ON THE RIVER: 10s

He still makes a higher straight, thanks to his Jack! He had 10/44 outs, and made his odds much as we had ours.  Two players had gone bust but took re-buys; we don't re-buy and wind up leaving the table first -- tenth out of 10 players.

MINISTRY MOMENT: The player to our left was a young man who's a member of a local Catholic college baseball team.  So when another man won a pot with three 6's, we said, "He's got a beast!"  Then we quietly said to out left, "As a.... student, I figure you'd understand that."

The young man laughed a bit and nodded a little at that, but said nothing.  We checked later, and found a General Education degree at his college requires taking at least one theology course -- not necessarily the New Testament. That's where our "beast" reference is found:

This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666. - Revelation 13:18

The problem with this verse is that many people claiming to have "wisdom" have interpreted that number in various ways.  In fact, some ministers consider the "beast' to be the Roman Catholic Church.  We'll leave that identity for you to study and examine. But we'd ask you to keep this in mind....

...There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who receives the mark of his name. - Revelation 14:11

The "mark" is forced on everyone who wants to buy or sell (13:16-17). What should we do instead?

This calls for patient endurance on the part of the saints who obey God's commandments and remain faithful to Jesus. - Revelation 14:12

Two things are critical: obey God's commands and being faithful toward Jesus. Check yourself against the Bible on a regular basis, to see if that's what you're really doing.

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 169 final tables in 455 games (37.1%) - 29 cashes.

It admittedly seems unfair to score this as making a final table. But only one table of tournament players showed up (a separate table went directly into a cash game) -- and if not for the two re-buys before us, we would have finished eighth.