Poker Night 550: The Ace Looks Familiar

"Aces only win 30 percent of the time," a man told us Wednesday night at Hollywood Casino Indiana. We learned that the hard way on our last poker night there. So imagine what might happen if history repeated itself....

BLINDS: 75/150

IN THE POCKET: A-A

We won an early pot with K-5 when two 5's came on the flop. Now we've been moved to a newly-formed table on this two-table tournament night - and look at what we've found on the very first hand! In mid-position at a table of six, we modestly raise to 300. A man across the table calls, but the rest aren't interested.

ON THE FLOP: A-2-Q

An auto club flop for us - as we have A-A-A. But the other man is first to act. He checks. We make a modest continuation bet of 500, and he calls. If this is like our last tournament and he has pocket Queens, the tables truly will turn.

ON THE TURN: 7

We can't imagine that helped our opponent at all. But he pulls a surprise, by betting 2,500. There's no straight or flush threat here - yet we pause for a moment simply because we're baffled. Why is he betting so much, especially considering what we have? We conclude there's nothing to fear, so we call.

ON THE RIVER: 9

"I'm all-in," our opponent says. Now we're convinced he was trying to bluff us away. That won't work, though; we take less than five seconds to call.

The opponent shows.... A-4. (We believe they were suited spades.)

"You've got an Ace. That's good," we say. "But I've got two Aces."

The opponent groans. He overbet, and his night is finished. Our chip count jumps to more than 24,000 in only one hand. Talk about a "turbo" tournament.

We tried to play carefully from there, and reached the first break at 24,750. Pocket Aces came twice more (once unshown), and we used them to knock out a second player. Despite some second-hour efforts which didn't pay off, we cruised to the final table at 22,300.

But then the cards started drying up for us. At the second break, we still had 18,100. But rising blinds were our undoing; we finally were forced to go all-in with Q-J, and a caller with pocket 10's won the race when the board didn't pair for us. At least we improved to sixth place out of 13 players, after the last early bust.

MINISTRY MOMENT: "Let the Big Blind Special shine its light on me...." a large man sang when his turn in the Big Blind came.

"I think that was originally a gospel song," we said to him. We checked later, and must admit that's not true - although there is a gospel version of the Midnight Special tune (which some of you may know best from an old Friday night concert series on TV).

But our comment sparked a discussion about Christianity, and we found the man knew a number of Bible verses. At one point, he quoted this....

Death and life are in the power of the tongue... - Proverbs 18:21 (KJV)

"I'm 'speaking life' over my chips," the man added.

At that point, he turned from sounding like a believer to sounding irreverent and far-fetched. Some Christian preachers admittedly say if you pray hard enough or faithfully enough for something to grow, the growth will happen. And in fact, the man's chip stack improved from about 2,300 to the 10,000 range after we joined his table.

We'll save what happened from there for another post - but let's get back to that Bible verse. The man only quoted part of it....

….and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof. - Proverbs 18:21b (KJV)

What does that mean? Doctors know if you swallow your physical tongue, you're at risk of dying. But we think a good Biblical explanation is found one verse earlier:

From the fruit of his mouth a man's stomach is filled; with the harvest of his lips he is satisfied. - Proverbs 18:20

The words we say (or write on social media) can cause a big impact. They can bring insight to other people. They also can incite them to anger, and even violence. And at the end of the day (or better put, our days), God is keeping track of it all.

But I tell you that man will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned. - Matthew 12:36-37

Our final table turned for a while into a comedy hour, with several people sharing jokes and stories. Sadly, most of them would be rated R or worse at the movies. So what are you saying when you play poker? And more importantly, how would Jesus judge it?

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 203 final tables in 550 games (36.9%) - 41 cashes. Since hitting the 500-game milestone in April 2017, we've made 20 final tables out of 50 (40%).