One on One

It seemed a little different for us today -- "Resurrection Sunday" (others call it Easter) without any poker to watch (and blog about) on TV.

For several years, NBC started the annual National Heads-Up Poker Championship broadcasts in early April. But there was no weekend tournament in Las Vegas in March 2012.  The event was called off, apparently due to a lack of sponsorship -- another aftershock from the federal crackdown on online poker almost a year ago.

So we can't watch poker pros and amateur celebrities staring down each other across the table.  How about developing another kind of personal relationship instead?  We're talking about a relationship with God, through His Son Jesus Christ.

When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?"... - John 21:15a

Jesus asked Peter this question not once, but three times -- matching the three times Peter denied knowing Jesus before the crucifixion.  Each time, the Lord's question cut a little bit deeper.

Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, "Do you love me?"  He said, "Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you."  Jesus said, "Feed my sheep." - John 21:17b

The Greek word for love is different in verse 17, than in the verses before.  Strong's Exhaustive Concordance indicates Jesus changes from a social or moral love to an "affection" or "personal attachment."  That's the kind of love Jesus wants us to have toward him -- a love from the heart, not simply the head.

So how many times does Jesus need to ask you this big question?  Are you simply "heads-up" with the Lord of the universe -- or are you going farther?

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. - Ephesians 3:17-18

National Heads-Up Week 1: In Several Languages

A new season of the National Heads-Up Poker Championship began on NBC Sunday. (No, we didn't forget -- we simply were very busy.) We noticed several of the usual poker site advertisers were missing. Hmmm -- we wonder why?!

But admittedly, we were surprised by one moment when confessed Christian Daniel Negreanu was surprised by a hand he lost to Phil Laak. "What the h**l?" Negreanu asked aloud.

We're old enough to remember when the "H-word" was considered profanity. Times have changed so much that it's considered nothing now -- and we even hear church pastors toss the word around loosely during sermons. But a believer still has to watch his words, whether at the poker table or a worship service.

But I tell you that men 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

When Harry Truman was U.S. President, he said he simply told the truth -- and others considered it, uh, not very heavenly. Such was the Laak-Negreanu hand, as Laak disguised three of a kind very well. (He went on to win the match.)

This moment actually ties together with a recent comment a player made at one of our local tournaments, about words and symbols. The symbol of Christ's crucifixion which we brought (a long nail) can have an impact. But unless we use words to explain the nail's purpose, the meaning can be missed. Which reminds us....

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.... The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. -- John 1:1, 14

Jesus is described in the New Testament in many symbolic ways. We'll let you think about those ways, and make a list of them -- but one of them simply is "The Word." The Lord spoke the words of His Father, and so should we.

Many words are being said about Jesus by ministers this week. May they be words of truth about "the Word" who called Himself "the truth" (John 14:6).

March Heads-Up Madness

Unless you have a good memory or a close watch on poker blogs, you might not know the National Heads-up Championship is underway in Las Vegas this weekend.

If you don't want to wait until NBC shows the tournament in April and May, the field is at eight as we write this. Hopefully we won't spoil anything by noting no "celebrities" are left in the field. Who do you like, of the players remaining?

Poker Night 112: Over the Top

The flop in poker can make you sad, make you smile -- and sometimes make you smile a bit too soon. Consider what happened to us tonight at Lil Kim's Cove....

BLINDS: 25/50

IN THE POCKET: Q-10 offsuit

The tournament is only a couple of hands old, but we're at a table surrounded by players we know are good and successful. This is the first hand we play -- and after we toss in our 50, a man raises 300. We call, as do a few others.

ON THE FLOP: 10-8-7

Top pair of 10's? Didn't we see this somewhere before? To be honest, we did NOT remember last Thursday night when this came up. The player who raised is keeping us occupied, betting 500 ahead of us. We call.

ON THE TURN: 4

We still have top pair -- but the man ahead of us is still betting. He tosses in 500 more, and we join a couple of others in calling again.

ON THE RIVER: 3

The big bettor now throws in 1,000 -- and this is not one of the players we noted as good and successful. Did he make two pair? Has he been bluffing all along?

We dare to call 1,000, thinking it's a bluff -- only to discover he has pocket Kings. The "overpair" leaves us in despair.

That hand cost us a lot of chips, and we never got them back. In fact, we never won a hand all night. Tight play (along with large-scale wild betting by several others) allowed us to finish 17th, barely missing a semifinal table. Our last straw was going all-in with A-2, only to have nothing pair while another man made pairs.

MINISTRY MOMENT: The Big Dog Poker tournaments take a "color-up" break at the one-hour mark, as blinds increase to 500/1,000. We had enough smaller chips to earn one green chip for 500. When the man doing the conversion offered us a second one, we gave it back and noted he'd given us one before.

"I appreciate your honesty," said a man who had just taken a seat to our right.

"Just doing what I'm supposed to do," we answered. "Shouldn't people be honest all the time?"

"I don't know," the man says. He explained some people can be "brutally honest" -- even to the point that countries go to war against each other.

The man's point is a very insightful one. "Honesty needs to be mixed with something, doesn't it?" we said. "It needs to be mixed with love."

The man wasn't quite ready to go that far. He tried to draw a distinction between lying, "white lies" and "misdirecting" people.

What do you think of that? We'll analyze that some more in another post.

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 47 final tables in 112 nights (42.0%) - 10 cashes.

YAHOO POKER TOTAL: $13,816 - unchanged. (No play)

NBC SPORTS POKER TOTAL: Five-player sit-n-goes - 31-36-10-6-9. Full tournaments - 27 final tables in 221 games (12.2%), 3 cashes.

This apparently will be our final score from NBC Sports. While we've found no official announcement about it, the poker room's merger with National League of Poker seems to be permanent. At least we went out a winner there, with first place on Tuesday.

NATIONAL LEAGUE OF POKER TOTAL: Five-player sit-n-goes - 2-2-0-0-0. Full tournaments - 3 final tables in 8 games (37.5%), no cashes.

We finally played full tourneys at NLOP in the last few days -- and were surprised to make final tables the first two times, in fields of more than 140 players. Our best finish so far was seventh out of 50 today, which qualified us for a monthly "senior championship" in two weeks. (Yes, we're that old.)

Jesus Take the Deal?

We have a couple of updates on Tuesday's big win at the NBC Sports poker room. We logged on there today, and discovered it's turned into the National League of Poker room!

They share the same gaming software -- but the merger apparently cost us all the points we won Tuesday, to get into a $1,000 weekly tournament Sunday night. Hopefully our $20 check was not lost as well. (You don't think that was the last straw?!?!)

We promised to share some more about Tuesday's win. We entered the final table near the bottom of the chip list, then won five pots to roar into the lead. But before that, there was this chat....

Dealer: flopblog wins Main Pot ($2740) with Two pair, jacks and fours
Me: (whew) PTL
Bucky: was yhe dealing
Bucky: he
Me: Don't know - but I'm thankful anyway.

This is a tricky subject -- does God really care that much about a poker tournament with a $20 prize?

If you say God inspires the deal of the cards in your favor, you'd better be ready to give Him "credit" if you're dealt 2-5 offsuit. Or that heart on the river which gives someone else a flush to beat your straight.

"If he snatches away," Job said of God, "who can stop him? Who can say to him, 'What are you doing?'" (Job 9:12)

That follows this more famous Bible quote: "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." (Job 1:21, KJV) The next verse points out Job did not "charge God foolishly" -- as in charge with wrongdoing.

God indeed knows what He's doing -- whether you win five hands in a row, or push all-in and lose on the opening hand of the night. The better question may be: Do you know what you're doing when you play? Do you seek God's wisdom -- not only in the way you handle cards, but handle yourself around the table?

We choose to give God the "PTL" when we win a pot (note the person who commented above knew what that shorthand meant). When in doubt, be thankful -- because it beats any alternative.

Winner winner....

....well, we probably won't rush out for a chicken dinner. But we just WON the 2:30 p.m. ET NBC Sports tournament, to win $20!


We beat 118 other players -- and here's the way the final hand looked. With blinds at 2000/4000, "Loverboy" called. We raised from the Big Blind (holding about a 2:1 chip lead), and he called again.

When a third Ace came on the flop, we bet 12,000. "OK here goes," Loverboy wrote as he pushed all-in.

"Uh-oh" we wrote in calling. Our opponent had only 4-2 of hearts, but he had a flush draw. When no flush came, we prevailed.

It's our second full-tournament win at NBC Sports. The last happened in mid-July -- and in full tournaments on two online sites, we've now made the final table four times in the last six games!

This came at the end of an amazing big final-table comeback -- but we'll save that for another post.

NBC Sports Championship #7: Deep Into the Night

NBC Sports had some kind of glitch early in the week, which resulted in our receiving an invitation to the Sunday night "Weekly Championship" on Tuesday afternoon. We registered early, and took advantage of the open door....

:04 IN: We have K-10, and go heads up against a player named "Jezebelle." In the Bible, Elijah ran away from a woman with that name making threats (I Kings 19:1-3). We don't, and wind up with K's and Q's for a $415 pot.

:27 IN: We have K-9 of hearts, and go against our tendency by playing it. Two Kings come on the flop! We take a $1,935 pot.

:40 IN: We have A-4. Three hearts come on the flop (we have none), but one of them is a 4. We dare to bet $500 on bottom pair, and the table folds.

:43 IN: We have J-9. On the flop: J-Q-Q. We stay in through a 9-8, and top a King high for a $1,600 pot.

:47 IN: We have A-2 of diamonds. On the flop: A-8-5, with the 8 a diamond. We call a $420 bet. The turn is 7d, but the river is another 7. Another player dares to push all-in. We call -- and he has Q-Q. Our chip stack jumps to $7,570!

:49 IN: We have 6-6 -- and when K-K comes on the flop, two pair are good enough to win for us again. We jump above $13,000, to #11 in the standings out of 857 players!

1:12 IN: We have A-Q of clubs. On the flop: A-6-2 (no clubs). With the blinds at 200/400, a player check-raises to 1,000. We call -- and eventually top the opponent's A-10! The chip stack tops $12,000. With 150 players to go, we reach #9 on the leaderboard!

1:37 IN: We have Q-10. On the flop: 6-K-Q. We stay in through some betting, and a 4-K. Our two pair top an opponent's A-J for an $8,900 pot! The chip stack approaches $15,000.

At the two-hour break, only 40 players remain. We're still alive at #32, with 8,350 chips. Our breathing during hands is getting a bit heavy.

2:00 IN: Right off the bat out of the break, we have A-Q. With the blinds in the 1,200 range, an opponent doubles the bet. We call, and a weak 4-3-7 flop comes. But the turn is a 3, the river is a Q -- and our two pair tops the opponent's A-J! That leads to this MINISTRY MOMENT....

Dealer: flopblog wins Main Pot ($20000) with Two pair, queens and threes
Me: (whew) PTL
FIGJAM: whats that pitty the loser
FIGJAM: Whats PTL
Me: Praise the Lord.
BobbyT1210: p*** the loot
FIGJAM: Ah
FIGJAM: Guess I should have went to church today
Me: I went Saturday pm - to give the devil his don't.

We mentioned our new abbreviation of praise in another post. Figjam was the first person to ask about it. (But sadly, critics of The PTL Club's excesses indeed gave that shorthand other words.)

We actually do keep a seventh-day Saturday Sabbath. That's kept us away from some tempting tournaments, but we're dealing with it. And oh yes, we don't keep Halloween -- so while others may have "given the devil his due" on Saturday, we did the opposite. :-)

2:07 IN: We have K-J offsuit. On the flop: 10h-4h-3 not a heart. Players check. On the turn: Jh. We bet $1,600 with no heart in our hand -- and top pair is enough to scare the crowd away. That's a $7,300 pot!

The Championship now has 32 players left -- and we're #19.

2:14 IN: We have 7-5 of hearts in the big blind. On the flop: 8-3-5 (no hearts). Players check. On the turn: 2. On the river: 7. Emboldened with two pair, we bet about $3,000 -- and get burned by an opponent hiding with three 3's.

2:17 IN: We're dealt K-Q, with $7,900 left. Blinds now are so high that it's time to push this all-in. A player calls -- and the flop brings 2-3-Q! Running 2's follow, and our full house tops an opponent with 9-9! We survive and jump to $21,200.

2:18 IN: We have A-9 of hearts in the very next hand. We limp with them, to avoid being overconfident. On the flop: 7-10-8, all spades. We call a $3,000 bet with an open-ended straight draw. On the turn: 9c. On the river: 4d. We dare to bet $3,000 on the theory another player missed a draw -- but no. He has K-J, and takes the pot with a straight. We admit in the chat that was a bad decision on our part.

2:25 IN: We have K-J, and $8,099 in chips left. We're first to act, and push all-in. A player calls us -- but with K-Q. The flop is K-Q-2. While a Jack comes on the river, we're outgunned.

FINAL: 23rd place out of 857! Not a win, but certainly thrilling -- and it's our best finish ever in the Sunday night big game.

Compared with the prize pool at the World Series of Poker Main Event, we would have been well in the money -- about 175th place, earning 3.6 times our buy-in. Sadly, NBC Sports only pays the top three finishers.

NBC Sports Championship #6: The Wrong Time to Strike

For the first time in about two months, we qualified to play in tonight's online Weekly Championship at NBC Sports. (Our schedule was such in several recent weeks that we couldn't have played the big Sunday night game, even had we qualified.) Here's how it went....

:05 IN: We have Q-Q, which turns into a full house with Q's over 3's. We score a fast $1,020 pot.

From then, the deal doesn't impress us for quite awhile. We barely play a hand for the next 25 minutes.

:34 IN: We have A-Q, and an Ace appears on the flop. We bet carefully, fearing another player has two pair -- but no one does, and we take a $380 pot which eliminates a player.

:37 IN: A check of the scoreboard shows 302 players remain, out of a starting 635. Half the field dropped out in a big hurry.

:42 IN: We have 7-8. The flop is 5-6-10, giving us an open-ended straight draw. Another player is betting the minimum $200, and we call. An 8 on the turn gives us a pair, but not what we really want. After another $200 call, a 6 on the river gives us an uninspiring two pair. Everyone checks -- and another player has the 9 we lacked, to make a straight.

:47 IN: The prior hand cost us a lot of chips, and we're left with $920. Dealt A-8, we double the bet to $400 and attract a couple of callers.

ON THE FLOP: A-5-3.

With $520 left, we decide it's time to push all-in with top pair. But another player calls -- who happens to have A-J. This is big trouble.

ON THE TURN: 4.

If a 2 comes on the river, we'll split the pot with a straight on the board.

ON THE RIVER: 6.

Final score: a finish in 224th place. Try, try again.

Fool's Gold

We've said here before that poker is a game that can keep you humble -- sometimes in ridiculous ways. Consider what happened a few minutes ago in an NBC Sports poker tournament:

BLINDS: 30/60

IN THE POCKET: A-K offsuit

We're doing well, with more than 2,300 chips from a starting 1,000. So we "double up" and raise to 120. The player next to us triples up, raising to 180. Then someone across the table pushes all-in with 780.

As other players get out of the way, we realize what "the book" says here. You simply don't fold A-K. So we call an additional 660. Then the man to our left also goes all-in, with about 3,500 chips -- even more than we have.

"How far-fetched is this?" we write as we call. Then everyone shows their cards. We have A-K. The player across the table has A-Q; we can't blame him for pushing with that. But the player who pushed beyond that has 7-9 of spades. What was he thinking -- that everyone else was bluffing? We like our chances.

ON THE FLOP: 9-5-5

Aw, c'mon! The man who bet too much has the lead, with two pair. But one Ace or King could change things.

ON THE TURN: 3.

Oh no, please don't tell me....

ON THE RIVER: 9.

"Incredible," is all we can write. The man who pushed with two simple suited spades winds up with a full house, and takes out two players with far better cards.

Would this happen at a live tournament with big bucks on the line, as opposed to an online game for $20? We frankly doubt it, unless the player with 7-9 was practically out of chips and desperate for a comeback. But in online poker, players sometimes do illogical things -- and sometimes succeed.

"A fool utters all his mind," says Proverbs 29:11 (KJV). And sometimes throws out all his chips as well. Occasionally it works -- and it leaves us shaking our heads in disbelief.

We think it's better to follow the advice of Proverbs 13:11 (NIV): "He who gathers money little by little makes it grow." That worked with investments for decades (until admittedly last September) -- and is a patient approach to building a chip stack as well. What do you think?

NBC Sports Championship #5: Don't Blame My Brother

It took a sit-n-go win at 2:45 in the morning, but we qualified for the NBC Sports poker room weekly championship tonight. And if they had awarded money for the top ten percent of the players, we would have taken home some -- finishing a best-yet 55th place out of 697 players. (Sadly, only the top three get checks.)

How did it go -- and how in the world did we get that title? Here's a summary....

:08 IN: We finally reach an online table, after our computer starts freezing at 6:57 pm. We're convinced it was another one of those "mal-ware" attacks to lock us out.

:16 IN: We have A-K, and a player ahead of us pushes all-in. "Daring us, eh?" we write -- and we wind up all-in with him. Our opponent has A-Q -- but a King on the flop wins us $1,720.

:22 IN: We're in the small blind with A-K. We decide to limp -- and are rewarded when no Ace or King comes up. The loss is minimal.

:32 IN: We play K-9 suited. The flop is K-3-3. Another player with more chips goes all-in. We fear the worst, but dare to call. Indeed, that opponent has A-A. BUT a King on the turn gives us a full house, for $3,270. "Alleluia," we write.

:42 IN: Our computer slows markedly, and a "latency" message appears on the screen telling us we're hopelessly behind play and need to reset. The thing is, the poker game is the ONLY thing open on our computer. We're delayed a few minutes getting the game reset, and return just in time for....

:47 IN: Q-K. We play it, and the flop is K-4-6. Our small bet with top pair is called. The turn is a 4. Our bet is called again. The river is a 9. Both of us check, and we beat the opponent's K-5 to gain $3,400.

:55 IN: K-K with cautious betting wins us $2,850 more.

Then comes the one-hour break, with our stack at $6,545 -- 23rd place our of 149 still playing. An opponent notes 500 players were dismissed in an hour, and we answer: "More pushers than at a drug addiction clinic."

1:25 IN: The first good hand in awhile comes our way -- A-K. A King on the flop brings a $2,900 all-in bet from us. The opponent folds, and we're back to $5,395.

1:30 IN: At about this point, our older brother calls from another state. We seek his advice with an A-8 before us, but he's admittedly a poker novice and doesn't really know what to do. We call, but miss the flop and lose about $1,200 to rising blinds.

"Bet you never thought you'd hear running poker commentary when you called me," we joke. Big blinds and antes erode our stack during the discussion, and then just as our brother is about hang up so we can "concentrate on the game"....

1:45 IN: We're down to about $2,400 with Kc-8c. With blinds at 1,600, we dare to raise all-in. But Queens and 9's come instead, and we're out.

We promised our brother we would NOT blame him for the outcome. So there, we didn't. :-)

Poker Night #94: Ezekiel Saw the Wheel

That title was one of the first "spiritual" songs our junior high school chorus sang years ago. It's based on a vision a prophet saw in Ezekiel 1:15. "As I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the ground beside each creature with its four faces."

Read the rest of the chapter to figure out what the vision means. (And if you need help, please let us know.) But we bring this up because in poker, a "wheel" refers to the lowest straight: A-2-3-4-5. And tonight at Lil Kim's Cove, we saw a wheel....

BLINDS: 50/100

IN THE POCKET: A-3 offsuit

Standard calling takes place, and we join several at the table in this hand. Our chip count is about 7,500.

ON THE FLOP: 2-4-5

Wheel, wheel! A woman ahead of us seems confident for some reason, and bets 500. We're really confident, and raise to 1,500. One other player dares to call, and the woman reluctantly does as well.

ON THE TURN: 5

The woman playing first tries to frighten us again, betting 2,000. There's no flush threat on the board.

"That's not enough," we say -- and raise to 4,000. The man to our left doesn't have nearly that much, but he goes all-in. After other people sort out what his total potential winnings would be, the woman who started this pounds her remaining stack of 1,850 chips onto the table. She's all-in as well.

"I flopped a straight," we say matter-of-factly. The woman defeatedly slams down J-J. But she could make a full house if....

ON THE RIVER: Q.

Thankfully, she didn't -- and the man to our left couldn't match us, either. We take out two players, and gain several thousand chips.

Our chip count zoomed to more than 20,000 at one point -- but after a strong early start, the cards didn't come and we lost some marginal hands. We survived to the final table, carrying only 4,500 chips with blinds in the 4,000 range. That meant a push-or-else moment, and our A-K push fell short to a man with two pair.

Yet by finishing ninth overall, we made the final table for the third time in the last four live games. And we're guaranteed to be no worse than 40 percent on final tables, when we hit the 100-night mark in a few weeks. We give God the glory for helping us play well -- although we're clearly not perfect yet.

MINISTRY MOMENT: We showed our "Jesus as your Savior" coin to a man next to us tonight, and he agreed with the message. Unlike some players, he didn't curse very much either.

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 40 final tables in 94 nights (42.6%) - 9 cashes.

YAHOO POKER TOTAL: $13,226 - unchanged (no play there).

NBC SPORTS POKER TOTAL: Five-player sit-n-goes - 27-33-9-4-8. Full tournaments - 18 final tables in 130 games (13.8%), 2 cashes.

We sadly had to file a report with NBCSports.com today, after a "Trojan attack" interrupted our game for the second time in three days. Both attacks occurred at 3:57 p.m. ET. They froze our computer, then proceeded to shut it down and restart it with some kind of "Spyware 2010" program added. When he hurredly called the online poker room back up 10-15 minutes later, we could not return to our table. (A man at Lil Kim's Cove told us the malware seems to have that goal.)

If it was real VI (90 games)

One of our college hall-mates liked to say: "Close, but no cookie." That sums up our last ten live tournaments pretty well. Would two final tables have been enough to improve our record, if real money was on the line? Let's check, using our usual standards....

BUY-INS: 90 nights x $50 = $4,500

We only finished in the top five once in the last ten, and that was a fifth-place showing. Presuming a payoff of $500 for first, $400 for second and so on:

First -- 4 ($2,000)
Second - 4 ($1,600)
Third -- 4 ($1,200)
Fourth - 5 ($1,000)
TIES for fourth:
one two-way ($150)
one three-way ($67)

Fifth -- 6 ($600)
TIE for fifth: 1 ($50)

TOTAL -- 22 for $6,667.

The return on our pretend "buy-in investment" is dropping -- but still stands at 48.2%.

Looking at it another way: we'd finish "in the money" at live events 24.4% of the time. At NBC Sports online tournaments, we're getting "top ten percent" finishes (good for money most of the time at a casino) 22.9% of the time. That's a closer percentage than we expected.

NBC Sports Championship #4: Stay a Little Longer

We accomplished one goal tonight in the weekly championship game at the NBC Sports poker room. We made it to the one-hour break!

Trouble is, we went bust in the first hand after that break -- improving nonetheless to 185th place out of 691 players. It's a top-30% finish, but only the top three players win money.

Here's a summary of how our evening went:

Hand 1: A-10 leads to a double-up bet right away, and we take the lead with a $430 pot.

:15 IN: We have A-A, then a third Ace comes on the flop! We go all-in, and double-up to the tune of $1100.

:22 IN: Our Ace pairs on the flop, then we gain a diamond flush draw. But the flush doesn't happen, and we lose to a player with three 2's.

:23 IN: The very next hand finds us with Q-4. It becomes Q's and 8's on the flop, and we gain a $425 recovery pot.

:35 IN: We're dealt A-K, and an opponent with fewer chips goes all-in on the flop. We call -- only to discover he has J-9, and the board shows 8-7-10. He flopped a straight, and 5-5 following don't help us.

:36 IN: Next hand again, and we have A-4. Lowered to about $215 in chips, we're forced to go all-in with blinds coming up next hand. Yet a 4 comes on the flop, and our pair of 4's somehow holds up. "Alleluia," we say.

:39 IN: Another nice deal, with A-J. With A-8-10 on the flop, we go all-in -- and a third Ace comes, for a $1365 double-up.

:43 IN: We have J-10, and a player with $400 ahead of us goes all-in. We call, then another player behind us goes all-in with more. We're concerned and bail out -- only to find 7-A-9-8-5 hit the board. We would have won it all with a straight.

1:00 IN: BLINDS: 150/300

IN THE POCKET: J-10

We're in the big blind with $645. The man in the small blind doubles the bet to $600, and we feel compelled to go all-in. Another player joins the small blind in calling.

ON THE FLOP: 6-6-6

"Revelation flop," we write. If you're not sure why we wrote that, check the last few verses of Revelation 13.

We watch helpless, as the other two players in the hand check.

ON THE TURN: A

That's trouble. Someone must have an Ace, we figure, to put more than $600 into the hand originally. The small blind bets, and the other remaining player folds.

ON THE RIVER: 9

Sure enough, the small-blind had an A. His full house dooms us -- but we consider it an evening of improvement.

Poker Night #87: Amazing Card Tricks

It was a seemingly typical night for us at Lil Kim's Cove tonight. We won a couple of pots and gained ground. Then we lost a couple of chases and lost ground. Then we held on through an all-in moment -- and we wound up barely missing the final table, tying for ninth place when our all-in push with J-10 found an A-K on the flop, but no Queen for a straight from there.

Yet the memorable hand of the night came much earlier, and reminded us of why casino poker games have professional dealers:

BLINDS: 50/100

IN THE POCKET: 4-6 (we think; don't remember completely)

We're not in the blinds, so we're not interested in this hand. We fold, while most of the full table calls.

ON THE FLOP: 9h-9s-3c

Someone raises to about 300. Three players stay in the hand, including the dealer.

ON THE TURN: Ah.

The first player checks. The second player bets around 800. The dealer calls, then....

ON THE RIVER: Kh.

"Hold it, hold it!" someone at the table says. What about Player 1? He still has a decision to make. The dealer tries to cover up his mistake with his hand, but it's too late.

The tournament director happened to see all this. "You have to re-shuffle," he says. The King of hearts is pulled back and shuffled with the remaining cards in the deck. After a moment, with the river card already burned....

ON THE RIVER II: Kh

The table is amazed, as the exact same card came up! If the dealer ever goes to Las Vegas, he could make money in a couple of ways -- playing poker, or doing card tricks.

MINISTRY MOMENT: The player sitting to our left brought a "lucky" coin to the table tonight -- a 1942 Liberty silver dollar, with a small hole in it.

We showed the man our "Jesus as your Savior" coin. "That's cool," he says. Asked if he agrees with the message, he says yes.

But sadly, the man seems to forget that Savior as he works toward the final table. One hand later in the evening leaves him saying, "Jesus f****** Christ!"

"Jesus did many things," we respond quietly, "but He didn't do that." We're not sure if the man heard that.

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 37 final tables in 87 nights (42.5%) - 8 cashes. If we had resisted temptations through three recent semifinal table close calls (including tonight), our percentage would be around 46 percent.

NBC SPORTS POKER UPDATE: The poker day was not a complete loss, as we finished SECOND out of 152 players at an afternoon tournament! Second pays five dollars -- not much, but better than nothing.

It's our second paycheck in 11 days from NBC Sports -- and in the 2:30 p.m. ET tournament, we've made the final table FIVE times in the last ten tries! Maybe we're starting to figure this out....

NBC Sports Championship #3: Boricua Broke

The last week at the NBC Sports online poker table was wonderful, with three final table appearances and a $20 win. But in tonight's big weekly championship game, it didn't matter a bit -- and we went bust early with a bad hunch.

BLINDS: 20/40

IN THE POCKET: 6-6

We're the small blind, with a man named "Boricua" to our immediate right. He's already won a few pots, and leads the table. But he merely, and we join about five players in the hand by calling.

ON THE FLOP: 4-4-9

Small blind means we play first. We check with two pair -- but when the play checks around to Boricua on the button, he bets $340. We have $800, and this comes across to us as an "I'm boss, and I dare you" bet. We dare to call. No one else does.

ON THE TURN: Q.

We check. Boricus shoves all-in. Is he bluffing, and stabbing at the pot with a chip lead? We've already committed so much that we take the dare again. We call.

Then Boricua shows he had J-9 -- a higher two pair. We're in big trouble.

ON THE RIVER: A.

And we're gone in 15 minutes. Out of 696 players, we're #588. Ugh-ly.

Poker Night #86: The Man in Charge

It's a common concept in group psychology that where there is a vacuum of power, someone eventually will move in to fill that vacuum. At our main table at Lil Kim's Cove tonight, that was done by a man named Lou.

"You're slowing down the game," he said several times to a woman across from us who took her time betting. (The slowness may have been due to the bottle after bottle of Corona she was given.)

Lou insisted there was no reason to think about calling before the flop. One look at the cards, and the decision should be instant. "Trying to move the game along," he explained.

"Ship 'em! Next dealer," he declared after a few hands.

Lou's bossy approach irked a couple of players, and they told him so. We tried to be the obedient type -- and without saying so, we were waiting for a good hand to take a stand on multiple fronts. Trouble is, our best cards were marginal and other players raised around us before the flop to run us off.

Things were so bleak that we didn't win a pot in the first hour of play. but when you least expect it....

BLINDS: 500/1,000

IN THE POCKET: Qh-10d

It's the first hand after the one-hour "color-up" break, and we have only 3,000 chips. Deciding it's now or never, we go all-in. Three other players do the same.

ON THE FLOP: A-3-5 (all black cards)

It's looking bleak -- but everyone who still can bet checks.

ON THE TURN: 7

Bleaker still -- but everyone checks again.

ON THE RIVER: 5

We presume we're sunk -- but then everyone checks. "I've got a queen," we say.

"I've got nothing," Lou and another player say. The Queen is high card -- and amazingly, we jumped from 3,000 to 10,000 chips despite it all.

But we couldn't win any other hands, and did well to make the semifinal table. We went all-in again with A-10 in our first hand there, and an Ace fell on the flop. But three diamonds fell as well, and another man made a flush to put us out in 16th place.

MINISTRY MOMENT: At an online table a day or two ago, we had a nice chat with another player who finally decided: "You must be a preacher.... or a teacher."

"Wellll...." we wrote in response -- then invited the other player to this blog. We welcome that player, as well as others we've invited from the NBC Sports table. If you're interested in some preaching and teaching, we have a separate part of the web for that.

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 37 final tables in 86 nights (43.0%) - 8 cashes.

YAHOO POKER TOTAL: $13,203 - unchanged, because we haven't played there.

NBC SPORTS POKER TOTAL: Five-player Sit-N-Go games: 25-27-4-4-6. Full tournaments - 12 final tables in 91 games (13.2%), 1 cash.

We made the final table in the 2:30 p.m. ET tournament today, for the third time in six days! We've scored a 1st, 8th and 5th -- and the smallest turnout in any of the tournaments was 161 players.

NBC Sports Championship #2: Sorry, no sweep

We lasted a bit longer at the NBC Sports online weekly championship tournament tonight -- about 32 minutes, versus 22 before. But the only pot we won was an all-in moment with pocket Aces, after a couple of tough losses. (In one case, our 3 10's lost to a spade flush.) We improved to 358th, out of 682 players.

Ahhhhhh, but earlier that same day....

Our blog camera recorded the dramatic moment when we (flopblog) won our first major NBC Sports tournament! It took two hours 50 minutes for us to get to heads-up play. The decisive hand played out this way:

BLINDS: 6,000/12,000

IN THE POCKET: 10h-8h

We're in the big blind with more than 127,000 chips. Our foe has around 28,000, but dares to raise to 24,000. We clearly can afford to call.

ON THE FLOP: 6d-8c-3h

We have top pair, and force the issue. A minimum bet puts our opponent all-in, and he calls. Can't blame him: he has Ac-Qs -- but our pair of 8's is in the lead.

ON THE TURN: 5c.

Can we escape one more card, to win it all?

ON THE RIVER: Jd.

We left our foe as friends, based on the chat we had. He'd only won money at NBC Sports once before. First place in the mid-afternoon game earns us $20, and him $5.

We also earn about 21,000 points, putting us in first place on the weekly leaderboard. That will only last a few hours, at a late-night game with $50 at stake will draw a bigger crowd and earn someone else more points for first place. But ooo, that feels good!

155,525 Chips

And even better.... FIRST PLACE!

We just won a 161-player tournament at NBC Sports! Our first tournament win there -- and worth $20 cash.

On top of that, we're in the Weekly Championship game there later this evening, with an $800 prize.

Praise the Lord for a small win. And we won't rule out a possible big one!

Now we'd better take a dinner break....

If it was real V (80 games)

We think our live tournament results are getting stronger because we're playing NBC Sports online tournaments on a regular basis. In fact, results are better at both -- with three final tables in our last seven at NBC Sports, and a record high 5th Sunday afternoon (out of 62 players).

(There's a Biblical principle that comes to mind here. Proverbs 27:17 talks about "iron sharpening iron" -- and while that is used in relationship to friends, it probably can work for one game improving another as well.)

This regular feature measures live match results -- and in our ten outings, we've made SEVEN final tables! Using our standard from a Kansas City area casino....

BUY-INS: 80 nights x $50 = $4,000

Four of the seven final tables resulted in top five finishes -- one of them really a tie for fifth, due to two all-in players being eliminated at once. Presuming a payoff of $500 for first, $400 for second and so on:

First -- 4 ($2,000)
Second - 4 ($1,600)
Third -- 4 ($1,200)
Fourth - 5 ($1,000)
TIES for fourth:
one two-way ($150)
one three-way ($67)

Fifth -- 5 ($500)
TIE for fifth: 1 ($50)

TOTAL -- 21 for $6,567.

The return on our pretend "buy-in investment" is now at 64.2%.

As for applying this to the NBC Sports online games -- uhhhhh, right now we're thankful we only invest points there. But we're improving.

Poker Night #78: A Different Kind of "Thriller"

"Michael Jackson" were the first two words we heard as we walked into Lil Kim's Cove for tonight's tournament. A woman was on a cell phone, telling someone about the singer's sudden death. It was the talk of many in the club. But the players were there for poker -- and this hand brought a play some could call "Human Nature"....

BLINDS: 200/400

IN THE POCKET: K-10

We won an early pot with pocket Aces, so we have about 9,000 chips. A call is affordable, and several players join in.

ON THE FLOP: Q-J-9

A room-service straight! The only problem is that we're first in line to bet. At the back of the line, we could create something in reaction to other players.

We decide to go big, which goes against our usual game plan -- "3,500."

"That's a bold bet," says the woman to our immediate left who has folded. (She eventually builds an enormous chip stack by eliminating several players.)

"K-10?" a man to her left asks. (He's folded, too.) We pretend to ignore him. Only one man, who may not have heard that, chooses to take us on.

ON THE TURN: Q

A pair on the board opens the door for a possible full house. But we refuse to back out of the throttle -- "3,500 more." The other man calls.

ON THE RIVER: 5

Seemingly harmless -- but why does that other player keep calling? We slow down slightly and bet 3,000.

"All I have is 1,525," that man says. He calls, going all-in.

"You guessed I had K-10?" we say to the man who posed the question. "You're right" and we show it. Our opponent had A-10, and missed the straight. It's a bounty tournament, so the knockout earns us a 5,000-chip bonus -- on top of the 8,500+ the opponent had.

That was the high point of the night for us, as good cards didn't come often after that. We held on to take 10,000 chips to a nine-player final table. But on the first hand at the final table, our pocket Aces were stymied by another player who went all-in and wound up with three 9's.

P.S. There was NO "Michael Jackson luck" for us during the tournament tonight. We really don't believe in such things -- so when we were dealt J-5 of hearts at one point in the night, we folded a "Jackson-5" hand. It would NOT have won.

MINISTRY MOMENT: The NBC Sports online poker room frustrates a lot of players by occasionally kicking them out due to computer "latency" problems. (In our case, automatic anti-virus updates can do it.) During a tournament earlier in the day, one player wrote: "JesusChrist got booted for a f***in 10 mins."

"I've been booted, too," we respond. "And I like Jesus Christ." No one responded to that.

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 34 final tables in 78 nights (43.6%) - 8 cashes.

We've made six final tables in the last eight, eight in the last 12 -- and let the record show we were the only player to make the final table both Wednesday and Thursday night this week.

YAHOO POKER TOTAL: $13,211 - RECORD HIGH, up $129.

NBC SPORTS POKER TOTAL: Five-player games - 17-20-2-3-5; cash tournaments - 4 final tables in 52 games (7.7%), no cashes.

Our best result yet there occurred last Friday -- an 8th-place finish out of 146 players. We've wound up in the "top 25" in four of the last ten tournaments.