Poker Night 320: Slow and Go

Monday was a time for Kings and Queens - in some places, at least.  Britain celebrated Queen Elizabeth's 60th anniversary on the throne.  Then Monday night, the Los Angeles Kings moved within one game of their first Stanley Cup hockey title.  But we lost a hand with pocket Kings at The Red Barn, when a woman made three of a kind with 9's.  An earlier hand was a little bit loftier....

BLINDS: 25/50

IN THE POCKET: A-A

A big bet on the turn chased us off a potentially winning flush on the river in an early hand.  That reduced our starting stack of 7,000 to about 5,800.  But here's our chance for a comeback.  Sitting second in line, we limp in and wait for players with bigger stacks to make confident raises.  Too bad - no one does.  But most of the table calls.

ON THE FLOP: 7-8-9

Uh-oh, here's potential trouble -- three cards in a run.  But the play checks to us, allowing us to offer a guessing-game 600.  A few players fold, perhaps thinking we caught a straight.  But about three others call.

ON THE TURN: A

That's safely out of the "straight road," giving us three of a kind.  Players in front check again, so now we increase the bet to 1,200.  Two players don't seem thrilled about it, but they call anyway.  The lack of a raise leads us to think they're "on draws," and don't have the straight already.

ON THE RIVER: A

Whoa -- we didn't expect that!  We now beat any potential straight with top quads!  The play checks before us again, and we decide 2,000 is the right amount to maximize our profits.  A woman calls; a man folds.

"You have an Ace," a man out of the hand predicts in our direction.

"No," we answer. "I have two of them."

We show our quads; the woman indeed was on a straight draw, with at least a Jack (we think it was J-6).  The quads give us not only a big pot, but a 5,000-chip bonus -- plus compliments from a couple of players for how we slow-played a monster hand.

Another pot of two came our way, allowing us to reach the one-hour break at 15,025 chips.  Then things looked bleak, as due to missed flops and players making huge bets to force all-in decisions.  But a push with A-Q brought a pair of Queens, to restore us to 18,000.  Then we were invited to move to the other semifinal table, and took a modest pot there.

That brought us to the final table with 25,000 chips.  But another all-in moment with A-Q fell short, when the board didn't pair for us.  We finished the evening satisfied with another "mountain climb" against larger beverage-bought stacks, and a seventh-place finish.

MINISTRY MOMENT: An interesting discussion developed before the tournament when a man across the table mentioned how he'd like to die a certain way.

"And then what?" we asked -- borrowing a line from a Christian radio broadcast we heard recently.

The man admitted he didn't know for sure, but offered to mention something he saw "in a book."  We noted we have ideas as well, from "a good book."  For instance:

Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.... - Hebrews 9:27

"But how do you know your book is better than any other book?" the man asked.  "I think there's only one God...."

"I agree with you," we answered.  "There's only one God."  Our "good book" mentions that, too:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. - Deuteronomy 6:4

"You're trying to draw me in," the man said a bit defensively.  "It's just hard to believe in something you can't see."  He's correct about that, too.  That's why the Bible also says:

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. - Hebrews 11:1

We're reminded of a line from Paul Stookey's classic 1970s tune The Wedding Song: "Do you believe in something that you've never seen before?"  He's referring to marital love -- but the same sort of belief is involving in accepting God and Jesus Christ as your Savior.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. - II Corinthians 4:18

(There was more to this discussion; we'll continue it in a future post.)


UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 113 final tables in 320 nights (35.3%) - 17 cashes.  We'd normally pause at this point for a 20-game update on our live tournament play.  But we're going to postpone that for a few days; you'll understand why when the update appears.