Poker Day 445: Go Ahead and Jump

Some poker tables are filled with big spenders.  Others are tighter than an old suit.  One key to success in poker is hoping for people to spend, when you're pretending to be tight.  Here's an example from today's tournament at Arrowhead Poker....

BLINDS: 500/1,000

IN THE POCKET: 2-6 offsuit

We've won a couple of early pots and played carefully otherwise.  We have about 65,000 chips, from a starting stack of 60,000.  But these cards.... bleh. The only thing keeping us in the hand is the fact that we're in the Big Blind, and nobody raised. About five players at this table of seven are in.

ON THE FLOP: 2-6-2

Are you kidding us?!?!  Our lowly cards turn into a full house!  But we don't want to tip anyone off to that.  We check when our turn comes, hoping some greedy player will jump in.  Sadly for us, no one does.

ON THE TURN: 2

Yeow - now we have the full house in both directions!  But we check again, hoping for someone to unwittingly jump offside.  No one budges again.

ON THE RIVER: K

OK, there's a big card.  Now will someone jump in -- even to bluff?  The Small Blind checks, and we decide to instigate things ourselves.  We bet 3,000.  A man to our left calls; everyone else folds.

"I kept waiting for someone to bet," we say as we show our cards.  Our full house tops the opponent, who we don't think ever showed his cards.

"Big Blind special," another player points out.  True, it was.  But we were hoping for a bit more of a payoff.  Perhaps that 2 on the turn was a hindrance to us, scaring potential bluffers away.

We won several more pots, including an all-in moment with A-K.  Our stack reached 180,000 chips, on a day when 17 players showed up.  We held on deep into the final table.

Then with four players left and blinds at 20,000/40,000, a man to our left went all-in.  We saw K-Q with 80,000 chips left in the Big Blind, chose to go for it -- and ran into A-K.  The flop brought him a winning Ace, and we finished fourth.  Only the top three won money, so we came awfully close.

MINISTRY MOMENT: Our card protector today was a pin mentioning the National Day of Prayer.  "Here's what I plan to do this week," we said as we showed it to a man at our left.  "Do you believe in God?"

"Yes, I do."

"Do you pray?"

"Yes. I pray every day."

Good for him -- but how about you?  If you're not sure how to pray, the Bible offers help in several places.

This, then, is how you should pray: "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debts. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one." - Matthew 6:9-13

You may have grown up reciting a form of that prayer. It's come to be called the "Lord's Prayer." But what many churches may not tell you is what Jesus said right before these famous words:

And when you pray, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. - Matthew 6:7 (NASB)

Reading the Scriptures in prayer is not necessarily wrong.  You might do it to remind God of His promises to you, when times seem difficult.  But Jesus's point was that praying the same words over and over again can make them "meaningless." They become rote, and without any thoughtfulness or feeling.

The goal of Thursday's National Day of Prayer is actually to pray for the U.S. The "Pray for America" tab at the website linked above will provide some guidance on doing that.  But how should a poker player pray?  Offer a comment on that if you have ideas; we'll offer ours later in the week.

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 162 final tables in 445 games (36.4%) - 26 cashes.  We've made the final table in two of the last three multi-table tournaments we've entered.