BLINDS: 25/50
IN THE POCKET: K-9 of diamonds
We split one early pot with J-9, but we've lost a few moderately expensive chases. We have about 4,650 chips, and the Tournament Director has been too preoccupied to pay us the 2,000 more we're due for soda. Now we've dealt ourselves diamonds, and we hope they'll shine for us. We call, and no one at the table of seven raises.
ON THE FLOP: Qh-Jd-Ad
This flop leaves us with no pair, but plenty of possibilities -- as a 10 would bring a straight, and any diamond would give us the "nut flush." But these high cards have other players ready to bet. One of them offers 600. This is too good an opportunity to flee, so we call. About four players are still in.
ON THE TURN: 8s
Nope, that didn't do it. So a player offers 600 again, and we face an "I dare you" moment again. We're fully committed to the pot at this point, so we call -- putting us heads-up against the player to our immediate right.
ON THE RIVER: 10d
The "hope diamond" comes! And our poker face apparently is working, because our opponent starts counting chips. He decides to bet 1,700.
"I'm all in," we respond. Our count leaves us with a raise of 1,500. The other man laughs quietly for a moment at this.
"I'm gonna fold my Aces," he decides. But the hand isn't completely over.
"Rodney! Suited!" we announce with a loud voice. Regular readers will recall the Red Barn's "Rodney rule." Win a pot with K-9, and it's a 5,000-chip bonus. In this case, the K-9 were both diamonds -- so the bonus is 10,000! So we hit it big, and jump to nearly 20,000 chips.
We captured a couple more pots in the first hour, bringing us to the break at 26,000. Then pocket Queens paid off in the second hour, and we improved to about 46,000. But then rising blinds and a couple of small failures started eroding our stack.
We reached the third hour, and stayed alive with A-Q in the Small Blind when our Aces were good enough. But A-10 minutes later lost to A-Q, and an all-in move with A-2 failed to bring a pair. We came close to the final table, but finished 12th.
MINISTRY MOMENT: One of the most popular songs we hear at local poker tournaments is a Grammy-nominated tune by Cee Lo Green -- one with an obscene four-letter word in the title. The cleaned-up version for radio is called Forget You. But that's not the version bars play.
"He doesn't need that word in the song," we said to another player at the table.
"But without it," the man told us, "it wouldn't have the same oomph."
We disagreed with that view. "The words should be wholesome words," we commented. "We should have wholesome songs."
"I don't think he really cares about being wholesome," the man answered -- and he's probably right. In this world, you can gain a lot of fame and fortune by being risque. The death of magazine magnate Helen Gurley Brown earlier in the day reminds us of that fact as well. But what does God want?
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable -- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy -- think about such things. - Philippians 4:8Jesus admittedly left the second-highest throne in the spiritual universe, to come to Earth and save humans from their sins. But as a result, God wants us to think in a high-quality way -- as opposed to another barroom musical favorite, Friends in Low Places.
Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. - Ephesians 4:29
Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. - Ephesians 5:4Of course, we realize bars and nightclubs are filled with these things. And for decades, we stayed away from them. But the potential money and ministry of poker lead us into such places now -- and we try to keep things on the highest level possible when we go.
UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 121 final tables in 339 nights (35.7%) - 19 cashes.
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