Poker Day 488: The Measure of a Man

While you may be analyzing the moves of the players at the World Series of Poker final table, some of us have been busy trying to figure out people much closer to us. Down the table, in fact. Here's some of what happened to us Friday, when we returned to Kansas Star Casino:

BLINDS: 25/50

IN THE POCKET: K-Q offsuit

We were the first alternate for the tournament, but only had to wait six minutes to take a seat. Now we're at a table where one man is in an aggressive mood, with a lot of pre-flop raises. In this case, he goes up to 250. These are nice cards and it's early, so we call. We don't recall anyone else staying in.

ON THE FLOP: A-Q-3

That's.... well.... kinda nice. We have a high pair and a big kicker, but that Ace is a bigger problem. On top of that, our opponent makes a continuation bet of 300. Our hunch is that he's trying to test our courage with a bet like that. We're game; we call.

ON THE TURN: 4

Our opponent now shows (we hope) a measure of respect, by checking. Yet we're still cautious; what if he's suddenly switched to trapping? So we check along.

ON THE RIVER: 10

Our opponent checks again. We're baffled by what he has - and when in doubt, we smell a rat. We check with him.

"Pocket 6's," the man announces.

"But I have a Queen," we say as we show. Thankfully, he did not have an Ace. So we gain about 600 chips.

Yet that man's aggressive nature rubbed off on us. We dared to call pre-flop raises with promising cards, only to see them fall flat. A misplay on our part, when we bet with middle pair into a different big raiser, hurt us as well. Finally it was "push or die," and it worked a couple of times. But a do-or-die Big Blind with A-9 lost to another man's straight, and we finished 36th out of 68 players.

MINISTRY MOMENT: "Is that a little packet of salt you have?" a man asked us from across the table.

"Yes. Yes, it is," we admitted as some people laughed at our card protector. But then we explained, "I bring this to remind me that Jesus wants me to be the salt of the earth" (Matthew 5:13).

Much later as our chip stack dwindled, a man dared to bring it up again. "You're starting to look like Lot's wife over there."

We had to agree - admitting our tournament life was on the verge of being dead. But what was that other man talking about?

But Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. - Genesis 19:26

If we take this part of the Bible literally, God turned this woman into salt. Why would He do that? Read the entire chapter to understand....

With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, "Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished".... One of them said, "Flee for your lives! Don't look back, and don't stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!" - Genesis 19:15, 17

Lot and his family were told to get out of Sodom, because God was destroying it due to sin (verses 13-14).

Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah - from the Lord out of the heavens. - Genesis 19:24

Lot's wife disobeyed the instruction, by looking back. As a result, God took her life as well.

This may sound like a fascinating fantasy story - but believers in the Bible say it shows how serious God is about obedience. He destroyed not only people, but entire cities who rebelled against His rule and government. Do you think God still works that way today? Leave a comment with your thoughts, and we'll return to this in a future post.

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 180 final tables in 488 games (36.9%) - 35 cashes.