The Saturday night game at Winner's is $20 less expensive than a Sunday afternoon at Arrowhead Poker. But the "holiday" (more on that later) meant a lot of players apparently were missing. So we sat down for another one-table tournament, hoping to hang around long enough to win some money.
BLINDS: 200/400
IN THE POCKET: A-J of clubs
We haven't won a pot yet, although we could have -- throwing away 5-6 on the opening hand that would have made a straight. Now we have high suited cards and the Dealer button. When no one raises ahead of us at the table of eight, we raise to 1,200. About four players are in.
ON THE FLOP: 7-2-2
"And that is an epic flop!" the professional dealer jokes.
"No one really expects that," one player admits.
So the players in front of us check - and we make a continuation bet of 1,100. Two players fold, but a woman across from us calls.
ON THE TURN: 3
That card doesn't seem to enhance things. The woman checks -- but we're wondering about that call, so we check as well. Could she have a hidden pair?
ON THE RIVER: 5
It's not a blockbuster board at all -- but now the woman sets out 4,000 chips. She could be trying to outbluff us, but somehow we don't think so. After thinking it over for a moment, we fold.
"That was an epic flop," she now says - and she shows 7-7! She scored a full house on the flop, then waited us out. We're thankful it didn't cost us more than it did.
We finally won a couple of pots, including a double-up with K-K which turned around our evening. We reached a high of 61,000 chips, as other players were knocked out.
Then with four players left, we had 3-4 in the Big Blind. The flop was a lovely-looking 3-4-5. After checking the flop, we went all-in on the turn -- and were called by a man with A-2! He slowplayed us to our hurt as well, with a flopped straight. The river brought no full house for us, and we went home in fourth place (only the top two earned money).
MINISTRY MOMENT: We intentionally did NOT try to have one. The reason why goes back one year.
Regular readers will recall on Valentine's Day 2014, we went to a casino on a Friday night (an evening we turned into a three-part post). For one week we broke the seventh-day Sabbath we normally keep fervently, because the church group we attend considers Valentine's pagan and wrong....
Thus says the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed by the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. - Jeremiah 10:2 (KJV)That group had left the impression last year that any act of love on Valentine's was wrong. And since it also teaches this....
This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome.... - I John 5:3....we logically concluded keeping the Sabbath commandment would be showing love, and thus be wrong.
But this year that church group's messages about Valentine's Day were scaled back a bit. The emphasis was on showing acts of love all year long, instead of something special on February 14. So we decided to have a "bare minimum" Saturday - keeping the Sabbath and even going to church to be obedient, but not doing anything that might be considered out of the ordinary and over the "holiday" line.
It turned out only one or two players brought up Valentine's Day in the poker room. Only two of the eight players at the table wore red tops. So this group wasn't really keeping that "holiday," either -- and we really couldn't complain about that.
But maybe you're confused by all this. You may wonder what possibly could be wrong with a day set aside for "showing love," such as Valentine's Day. We recommend carefully considering this blog post by a church pastor, with an open Bible and mind. What "holidays" does God really consider, well, epic?
UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 159 final tables in 441 games (36.1%) - 26 cashes. We've reached four final tables in a row.... even if only enough players show up for one table.
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