Poker Night 336: A Pair of Fours

Let's say right off the bat: we were never dealt 4-4 Wednesday night at Soho Bar and Grill.  Not once.  So why are using that title?  Because of a day of poker which rivals the best we've ever had.  Here's how the springboard started going in the evening....

BLINDS: 25/50

IN THE POCKET: 9-10 of clubs

It's early in the tournament, but a couple of players have won nice-sized pots while we've waited for better moments to come.  We try to get in small with suited connectors, and it works as no one raises.

ON THE FLOP: 7s-8c-Js

Well, thank you very much!  We make an embedded straight, and sit late in the betting order.  One man tosses out 1,000.  Another raises 2,000.

"I'll re-raise," we declare -- up to 4,000.  The sight of two spades prompts this aggressive move, to run people off a flush draw.  The two players who bet aren't scared; they call, and one of them is all-in.

ON THE TURN: Kd

The player ahead of us with chips checks.  We refuse to allow "free cards," and go all-in for our remaining 1,775.  Our opponent calls.

"Do you have a straight?" we ask as we show.  No, he doesn't -- he has two pair.

ON THE RIVER: 6s

Our straight wins a big side pot -- but the man who went all-in earlier turns over two spades.  His flush dream pays off with the main pot.  Yet we still double our stack, to about 12,600 chips.

We had few big setbacks after that hand -- helped in part by the arrival of an aggressive-playing woman to our immediate left, who kept us watchful.  (She ran us A-K of clubs right away with huge bets, which cost us another straight.)  But solid pots came our way -- with a 7-7 semi-bluff on the river winning one hand, and pocket Queens taking another.

Our stack grew and grew, until we reached the final table with 165,000 chips.  We won a couple of pots there as well, including one with A-Q of spades.  But once the field dropped to four, lower stacks won all-in bets and moved ahead of us.  Rising blinds eventually reached 50,000/100,000, and good cards ran out for us.  Finally forced to go all-in with K-6 and the Small Blind, a man made two pair and topped us.

So we finished #4 at Soho -- which matched what happened earlier in the day at a National League of Poker online tournament!  We were #4 there, out of 453 players.  And with the top seven being rewarded with money, we had our first NLOP cash in more than a year.  It was only five dollars (the top three won 50-20-10), but a payday is still a payday!  Soho paid $75, but only to the winner.  It was a "pair of fours" which left us thankful and satisfied.

MINISTRY MOMENT: As we sat at the final table, we could hear eliminated players at the bar nearby.  We couldn't hear every detail, but one man was talking about Cain, Abel and Job.

"Stop talking about religion at a bar!" a woman at the final table yelled at them -- perhaps jokingly.

"Why not?" we asked.  "The people there need it."

"Unless your name is Amy Grant, shut up," the woman responded.

Huh?  We've sung Christian music over the years, but we wouldn't dare compare ourselves to the "Queen" of contemporary Christian songs.

The woman across from us then shared a story (which we were unable to verify online) about how Grant actually walked into bars and performed years ago.  She reportedly did this to present the gospel at places where sinners were most likely to be.

If that's true, then we have more in common with Grant than we realize.  After all, that's part of the reason why we play like poker.  Consider a prayer Jesus offered for His disciples....

My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.  They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. - John 17:15-16

Let's face it -- bars and nightclubs can be very "worldly" places.  Some believers say Christians shouldn't even walk near tavern doors, because the "influences" of things inside might corrupt them.  To a point, we agree with that view.  If Christians have a weakness for alcohol, tobacco or flirtatious affairs, they would be wise to avoid nightclubs.  Yet the Bible also says:

You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. - I John 4:4

We take this verse to mean the "one who is in you" refers to the Holy Spirit, or "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27) -- while that "one in the world" is the devil.

We've been playing live poker for more than five years, almost entirely at bars.  And while we don't claim "super sainthood," we have never been tempted to buy one can of beer or smoke one cigarette.  Those vices (as the world commonly considers them) are things which we've simply never done -- not even from our youth.  Perhaps our "habits" of carefulness are too hard to break.  And in this case, that's a good thing.

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 120 final tables in 336 nights (35.7%) - 19 cashes.

NATIONAL LEAGUE OF POKER TOTAL: Full tournaments- 254 point wins in 1,078 games (23.6%),  79 final tables, 10 total wins, 8 cashes.  No-River Hold 'em - 8 point wins in 41 games (19.5%), 7 final tables, one cash win.

Wednesday's "cash" technically was not a win, since we finished fourth.  But it followed an eighth-place finish in a No-River tournament Monday afternoon.

POKER STARS.NET TOTAL: Pretend cash games - $79,564, down $316.