First Hearing

Our last post mentioned a poker championship in Ohio exclusively for "deaf" people - players with hearing impairments. It's good that those players can be out and active. But we'd like to ask: what if something could be done so they can hear?

Modern science is making it possible for children to hear, where they otherwise might not. But a man once walked on Earth who restored hearing in a more amazing way:

So he replied to the messengers, "Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor." - Luke 7:22

This was the report of Jesus Christ, given to disciples of John the Baptizer (as one well-known minister calls him). John had baptized Jesus (Luke 3:21), yet somehow developed doubts about whether He was the real Messiah. Jesus's answer was that the proof was in the miracles that He did.

There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man. After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man's ears.... He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, "Ephphatha!" (which means, "Be opened!"). At this, the man's ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly. - Mark 7:32-35

Jesus not only healed the man's hearing disability, but allowed him to speak clearly.

Some poker players long for a one-off card on the river to stay in a tournament. Yet Jesus accomplished greater miracles than that. And the Bible shows a time is coming when that will happen again....

Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped.... - Isaiah 35:5

This will occur when people see "the glory of the Lord" (verse 3). Tonight some believers will enter a season of the year that pictures the future time when that will happen - when Jesus returns to Earth:

...They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. - Matthew 24:30b

The season begins with what Jews call Rosh Hashanah, and some believers call the "Feast of Trumpets." Read more about it by clicking here. Perhaps God wants you to join the celebration, and look forward to the time when a Deaf Poker Championship is something in the distant past.

Poker Day 436: Ace is Enough?

Life can become very busy at times.  For us, it's been so busy that we hadn't played in a poker tournament in five weeks.  So we went to Arrowhead Poker this afternoon, after practicing a bit in an  online cash game.  Would absence make our play better or worse?

BLINDS: 100/200

IN THE POCKET: A-8 offsuit

Only 11 players have shown up for Sunday action on a holiday weekend, giving us hope for "small table" success.  We're at the table of five, but have yet to win a hand.  With nearly our full chip stack, we take this cautiously and limp in.  Most of the players are in.

ON THE FLOP: A-Q-6

Top pair is nice -- and when the table checks, we get the feeling we're leading.  We bet 500 to see how serious the opposition is.  One man calls; the others fold.

ON THE TURN: 4

That seems harmless - and something tells us our opponent is chasing something, perhaps with a Queen.  We bet 1,000.  He doesn't hesitate, and calls.

ON THE RIVER: 5

That complicates things a bit.  Now there are three cards for a straight.  We check with caution - but our opponent offers 1,900.  This strikes us as a "get lost" bet.  But with top pair, we really can't.  So we call -- and he shows A-9!  His kicker card topped ours to take the pot.  And our read on that man turned out to be very wrong.

It was that sort of day for us -- betting on promising hands, only to lose to better ones.  Our stack of chips drained rather quickly.  An all-in moment with 9-9 brought a third 9 on the flop to allow a triple-up to 8,200 chips.  But it didn't last -- and a final push with J-9 when a Jack came on the flop led to an opponent making two pair, while we did not.

We finished 11th out of 11, which is technically in last place.  But if the tournament had not allowed re-buys, we would have been a couple of spots off the bottom.

MINISTRY MOMENT: We showed our "Lord's Supper" card protector to a man at our left -- the one with a depiction of a long-haired Jesus on the other side, when he turned it over.

"That's awesome," he said.

"I think Jesus is awesome.  Do you think Jesus is awesome?"

"Yes, he sure is," the man said quietly as he refocused on the game and his smartphone.

We think the word awesome gets overused today.  We've even heard church pastors say it to describe young people playing music a bit less than perfect.  The ministers may be trying to encourage young talent.  But consider how that word is used in the Bible....

Who among the gods is like you, O Lord? Who is like you - majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders? - Exodus 15:11

This verse comes from a song celebrating God's miracle for the Israelites at the Red Sea (verse 4). We think God showed a bit of that glory in providing a "pillar of fire" for Israel to keep moving away from the Egyptians (Exodus 13:21).

The Lord will be awesome to them when he destroys all the gods of the land. The nations on every shore will worship him, every one in its own land. - Zephaniah 2:11

This moment of "awesome-sauce" (to borrow from that credit card commercial) is written for the future.  The "Lord God" plans to destroy all other gods. How will that happen?

Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. "He will rule them with an iron scepter." He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: "King of Kings and Lord of Lords." - Revelation  19:15-16

To borrow from a carol at this time of year, the return of the "Lord of Lords" Jesus Christ will not be "tender and mild."  Jesus will strike down all opposition - and we suspect that will include the gods of those opponents as well.  Now that's one awesome Lord.  Agree?

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 155 final tables in 436 games (35.6%) - 25 cashes.  We missed a final table for the first time since mid-August (five tournaments ago).

Poker Night 287:Scare You, Scare Me

"It's OK.  It's all right./ I'm gonna take your chips tonight."  That was the song a player tried to sing tonight at Lil Kim's Cove.  (We hereby claim the words, since we doubt he plans to go to Nashville and become a country songwriter.)  If we wanted to sing along with him, we'd have to make some big and accurate decisions.  Take this example....

BLINDS: 1,000/2,000

IN THE POCKET: Q-3 of clubs

We've made it to a six-player semifinal table, thanks largely to a big blind double-up in the first hour with K-K.  We've hung on from there, beginning this hand with 6,500 chips.  The bad news is we're Small Blind - but the good news is that no one raised ahead of us.  In fact, only one player called.  These cards are marginal, but we decide to follow the classic poker reasoning: "They were suited."  We call.  The Big Blind mysteriously folds, so we're heads-up.

ON THE FLOP: 2c-2s-4s

An uglier flop than this is hard to find.  We need a lot of help, so we check prepared to fold.  Our opponent checks, too.

ON THE TURN: 3s

"Any bet wins, any bet wins," suggests the Big Blind.  Hmmm -- we now have two pair and a fairly good kicker.  So let's see if his advice is right.  We bet the minimum 2,000 -- but we get called.

ON THE RIVER: Ah

That's not exactly the card we wanted to see.  What if our opponent is sitting on Ace-high?  This time we check.

"I'm all-in," he announces -- with far more chips than the 2,500 we have left.  Uh-oh.

We stare at our opponent for a moment.  Then we laugh a bit, to break up any tension.  The man offers no help, as we think this move over.  We decide he pushed simply to make us chicken out.

"I'll call," we say with a smile -- ready to accept things either way.  "I have a 3."

But our opponent shows 6-6.  He has a better top pair, and he has us packing the tent.  We're eliminated in 14th place -- and another reminder that hunches don't always work.

MINISTRY MOMENT: "Is that a piece of trash?" the Big Blind said as we arrived at the semifinal table.

"Actually, it's a bandage," we explained.  It was our card protector for the evening -- and of course, it had a purpose.

"I brought this to remind me that Jesus is a healer," we told the man a couple of minutes later.  "Do you believe God can heal?"

The man said he did.  "He can raise the dead," he noted -- which reminded us of a miracle which was pointed out to us in a Bible study group earlier in the week.

....Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!"  The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.  Jesus said to them, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go." - John 11:43-44

An old church story says Jesus specified Lazarus - or else every dead person would have come out.  As the Son of God, Jesus had that power.  But He only used it on rare occasions - not even to restore John the Baptizer after his beheading.  So why here, and why now?  Lazarus was a friend of Jesus, who had been dead four days (verse 39).  But more importantly....

So they took away the stone.  Then Jesus looked up and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me.  I know that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me." - John 11:41-42

Jesus the Son was sent to Earth by God the Father.  He was sent with many purposes.  In this case....

....Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death.  No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it." - John 11:4

Many Jews believed in that glory, and put their faith in Christ after seeing this miracle (verse 45) - but others had seen more than enough, and plotted His execution (verse 53).  Which side would you have been on?

We know of several people fighting seemingly losing battles against cancer right now.  We pray that God might heal them, but realize the answer might be no.  That's why we put faith in another statement Jesus made in this chapter:

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never died.  Do you believe this?" - John 11:35-36

Our exact question to you.

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 105 final tables in 287 nights (36.6%) - 17 cashes.

NATIONAL LEAGUE OF POKER TOTAL: Full tournaments - 185 point wins in 801 games (23.1%), 63 final tables, 7 cashes.  One-table sit-n-goes - 8-13-10-3-3.

We're finding the new browser version of NLOP is much easier to play than the downloadable program.  Hiccups and delays are down sharply.  But the format change has included tougher standards for winning points -- more in line with the "top ten percent" practiced by real poker rooms.  Yet earlier in the day, we had a top-40 finish in a 655-player tournament.  Our 3,000-point buy-in earned us 5,857.

POKER STARS.NET TOTAL: Pretend cash games - $67,754, up $2,130.

What Went Wrong Here?

 Our last post brought up a sensitive subject for many people.  But homosexuality came up during our Thursday  night poker game (by others, not us), and it somewhat fits our mission here.

It's easy to crack a poker joke about this subject -- and point out the game sometimes pays you off for being "straight."  But let's go back to a section of Scripture we quoted before, where the apostle Paul explains how homosexuality develops:

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.... Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. - Romans 1:21, 24

These are words which could make people on both sides of the debate a moment to pause.  Paul says God "gave them over" to this kind of behavior -- and to a lot of other things as well.

Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.  They have become filled with every kind of wickedness.... - Romans 1:28-29

You can read through the end of the chapter to see what Paul put on his full list of "wickedness."  Homosexuality is only one of many things on that list.  But review those verses carefully, and you'll see Paul also mentions the way to avoid that list -- by glorifying God, giving Him thanks and retaining God's knowledge. It takes more than simply saying the proper words to Him....

For you are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's. - I Corinthians 6:20, KJV

This is talking about our physical bodies; why else would Paul advise earlier in verse 18 to "flee fornication"?

We realize, of course, that poker tends to be a game which does not discriminate.  Anyone can play in free tournaments, or can pay a buy-in fee to enter bigger games - no matter what ethnic background, sexual history or nationality.  (If you know of an exception to this, we'd be interested in hearing about it.)  So for us,  homosexuality is a non-issue when we play.  We don't bring up the topic, but we'll respond if others do.

But if you see a need to answer Paul's words of correction and get away from that list of wicked behavior -- whether it's homosexuality or anything else -- there are online resources to help you.  Here's one of them for starters.

Shorthand, Big Message

Did you figure out our assignment, about what we wrote at an online poker chat this week -- "2GBTG"?

We came across that abbreviation on a license plate in our town recently. And amazingly, it was the final sentence uttered by Oprah Winfrey on her last talk show Wednesday -- "To God be the glory."

To the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen. - Jude 25

While we didn't watch all of Oprah's "last lecture," the quotes we've read indicate she sent her audience mixed messages. She gave God glory at the end -- but also said, "You, alone, are enough." Can you really have that both ways? Consider the verse right before this....

To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy.... - Jude 24

Seek God's help in the things you do -- whether it be a TV talk show or a poker tournament. We know all too well it's not a guarantee of victory. But by putting faith in God and expressing it whatever the outcome, you'll have the comfort of knowing that outcome will be for your ultimate benefit.