If It Was Real: After Five (Years)

Today marks five years since we walked down the street to a bar in our city, to play our first live poker tournament.  The goal in 2007 wasn't primarily on ministry; we wanted to see if we could compete against the other poker players in town.

We've had a good bit of success, over five years and 322 poker nights.  Our final table percentage was in the 40-percent range for a long time, only to drop to around 35 percent in the last year or so.  And we've finished "in the money" (winning cash) at live tournaments 17 times -- including a two-for-two record at Florida poker rooms, which offer prizes in the hundreds of dollars.

But what if we played in poker rooms or casinos all the time?  We've kept track of that, using a tournament prize formula from a casino in our home area of Kansas City -- with a $50 buy-in paying $500 for first place, $400 for second, and on down to $100 for fifth.

Since we crossed the 300-game mark, we've made six final tables in 22 games.  But we've only made the top five in two of them, and one of those was a fifth-place tie.  We plug those into our earlier records, and here's the result:


BUY-INS: 322 nights x $50 = $15,600

First -- 5 ($2,500)
TIE for first: 1 ($450)

Second - 9 ($3,600)

Third -- 9 ($2,700)
TIE for third: 1 ($250)

Fourth - 12 ($2,400)
TIES for fourth:
4 two-way ($600)
1 three-way ($67)

Fifth -- 16 ($1,600)
TIES for fifth:
5 two-way ($250)
1 three-way ($17)

TOTAL -- 64 for $14,434


Our "buy-in investment" would have lost 7.5 percent over five years.  But we would note in local tournaments, the odds often are stacked against us -- as we usually only buy one soda for extra poker chips, while other players accumulate tens of thousands through sandwiches and beer buckets.  (Lil Kim's Cove even allows you to buy 15,000 extra chips for five dollars now.)

A few weekly tournaments in our city now have the Florida or casino format -- a buy-in tournament (normally five dollars) with NO extra chips given from the bar.  The result is a bigger payout, and a more level "playing field" (OK, table) for all the players.  But we have not entered one of those tournaments yet; our reason why is being held for another day.

In the meantime, we thank God for whatever success we've had -- both financially and in spreading "good news" about Jesus.  After all, the Bible reminds us....

Wealth is worthless in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death. - Proverbs 11:4