Choctaw Casino-Durant in southeast Oklahoma has become a place with an international poker reputation. Its nice enclosed upstairs room has been used for WPT events, and the WSOP circuit arrives there in late October. But on a federal holiday, our $70 total buy-in gave us only about 16 opponents plus a couple who did a re-buy. Would we have enough courage (and wisdom) to get a big finish?
BLINDS: 50/100
IN THE POCKET: A-A
Small early efforts have missed flops. An aggressive player at the opposite end of the table has chased us off a couple of pots. But now we've hit a big moment: the best possible pre-flop hand and lead position at a table of seven. With about 5,600 chips, we limp in and hope for raisers - but there are none. About five players are in.
ON THE FLOP: Jc-9h-7c (second suit may not be precise)
So far, so good - except two of these cards are clubs. We want to stop potential flush-chasing. So when the blinds check, we try to show we mean business by betting 250. Two men call; the two blinds fold.
ON THE TURN: J
Uh-oh.... potential trouble. The board pairs. Is someone sitting on a Jack, for three of a kind? Since we're back in the leadoff seat, this is a perplexing moment.
To look courageous and test the mettle of the opponents, we raise the bet to 500. A man to our left calls. But the other man raises to 1,200. Deep inside, we sense big trouble - but there's been a little bluffing at the table, so we dare to call. But now, the man to our left re-raises to 2,500! And he gets called!
We conclude both men are serious. "I don't think so," we say as we fold. Are we right?
ON THE RIVER: 4
This card doesn't seem to matter. The man to our left goes all-in - and gets called again!
So what do they have? The man to our left shows J-9! The man to our right has J-7! It's "boat over boat," and the J-9 wins a huge pot.
"I'm glad I got out of that," we say.
"What did you have?" a man to our right asks.
"I had them topped before the flop," is all we reveal. We'll save the deeper lesson in courage for another day - but we fell behind on the flop, and an attempt at an even larger "go-away" bet would have only hurt our cause.
That was the sort of night we had. We split one pot with K-10, then won an all-in Big Blind bet right before the one-hour break. But we only had 2,325 chips from a starting 7,000 at that break. And when we pushed with A-Q early in Hour 2 and were called by A-J, an Ace on the flop was followed by a Jack on the river. We missed the final table by finishing in 13th place.
MINISTRY MOMENT: We showed our "Lord's Supper" card protector to an older man seated to our right. He recognized the image on it, then asked, "Is that a precious metal?"
We tried to steer things in a more godly direction. "Jesus's blood was precious, wasn't it?"
At that point, a new hand started. We're not sure if he grasped what we said. But perhaps you've wondered about that. Why do people consider the blood of Jesus "precious"? It comes from this verse:
It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless lamb of God. - I Peter 1:19 (NLT)
An online dictionary defines "precious" as "of high price or great value.... highly esteemed for some spiritual, nonmaterial or moral quality...." Here's why the blood of Jesus fits that description....
For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver.... - I Peter 1:18 (NLT)
No, the ransom paid to save us was Christ's blood. While we are all sinners, Jesus was not (I John 3:5). He was a perfect sacrificial lamb (John 1:29), whose blood can remove your sins in God's eyes (I John 1:7). Have you turned your sins to God, to have Jesus remove them from your record?.
UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 184 final tables in 507 games (36.3%) - 37 cashes. We're now two-for-three in making final tables and the money, in games during church conventions.
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