Poker Night 549: Monsters' Ball

Courtesy Fox19.com

If we had gone to Jack Casino for poker tonight, we might have encountered this. A small "colony" of homeless people (their word for it) has set up a tent camp across from the casino.

We left it to that group to send someone inside, to try and win enough money to gain everyone housing. They probably would have done better than we did tonight at the alternative, Hollywood Casino Indiana....

BLINDS: 25/50

IN THE POCKET: 9-9

It's the fourth hand of the night, with a full table of ten. The previous hand brought an awe-striking fold - as a woman with pocket Kings gave them up, when a man with pocket Aces went all-in pre-flop.

We were in the Big Blind then, and folded a measly 4-8. Now we're in the Small Blind, and no one has raised.

"I'm not going to do what he did," we say, "but I'll raise." We make it 150 to go, and three players take us on.

ON THE FLOP: 8s-8d-8h

It's a toll-free flop - and an immediate full house for us! This calls for a continuation bet, to see who's simply chasing big cards. We put out 400. The first opponent folds. The second calls. The third folds. So we're heads-up.

ON THE TURN: 4h

We doubt this helped our opponent at all. But what does he have? A full house of his own? We check, hoping to get a clue - but he checks, too.

ON THE RIVER: 2h

Now three hearts are showing. If he stumbled into a flush, we still have him topped. The larger concern is a larger pocket pair. So we make a rather cautious bet of 500.... and he raises to 2,500.

We've taken the lead in this hand, so we feel compelled to see it through to the end. We call. "Do you have a full house?" we ask.

"I have the 8," he says. OUCH!!! He hit quads on the flop, then waited us out! A good, well-played monster hand for him. We won a few hundred chips back minutes later with a hidden A-Q.

But then, when a man raised to 1,100, we saw pocket Aces in the Big Blind. Pushing like that earlier player did would have seemed too obvious, so we raised to 3,500. He called - and the flop was K-Q-10. For no good reason except to scare him away, we bet 5,000. Our opponent went all-in. We feared the worst, but called anyway. His cards: Q-Q. The turn and river didn't save us, and we finished our worst poker night this year - first out, in under 30 minutes.

MINISTRY MOMENT: "We're all playing with a short deck," the dealer said at one point in the early minutes.

"Now you're getting philosophical," we told him with tongue-in-cheek. But we admitted, "I need to grow in knowledge." And when our turn with the cards came, we explained, "I need to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ."

That reminder comes right out of the New Testament:

But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen. - II Peter 3:18

These closing words of the apostle Peter should be taken in their entirety. For years, we attended church groups that emphasized the "knowledge" part - but on knowing scriptures, more than knowing the One who is the focus of Scripture. The two should go hand-in-hand....

For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. - Colossians 1:9

Spiritual wisdom means a "sound mind" (II Timothy 1:7, KJV). We'll admit we really didn't have it in our last hand of the night.

We should have realized the flop gave our opponent an excellent chance of hitting two high pair or three of a kind. Yet instead of making the awe-striking fold like that woman did, we did our own version of "going on tilt" - hoping the longshots that bit us recently would turn around and help us.

So the knowledge of Jesus Christ is important - but so is His grace. We need it, after clearly making a bad decision to go out for a poker night instead of staying home to work on other things. But thankfully, we can do this....

Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. - Hebrews 4:16

Do you need God's mercy for some reason - perhaps something much bigger than a poker meltdown? Ask God for it in prayer, repenting of sin if the case requires it. He's willing to listen and forgive.

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 202 final tables in 549 games (36.8%) - 41 cashes.