Time for a Change

We hinted in our last post that something was about to happen with us. Now we can reveal what it is.

After almost five years in our home state of Kansas, we've accepted a new full-time (at least for now) job in another state. The move is happening in a hurry, so Sunday marked our last poker tournament in the Wichita area.

Here are the final results from our poker days in Kansas:

Kansas Star Casino - Eight final tables in 47 games (17%); six cashes
Other Wichita poker rooms - 33 final tables in 51 games (64.7%); 10 cashes
Tournaments elsewhere (Kansas/Missouri/Oklahoma) - Six final tables in 13 games (46.2%); 3 cashes
WPT League - Five final tables in 17 games (29.4%); no cash awarded

Grand total: 52 final tables in 128 tournaments - a healthy-looking 40.6 percent!

But we should point some of those "other Wichita poker rooms" had only enough players for one table - and they were all shut down by police two years ago. And we're ending the tournament "experiment" we started last November with a loss of $260, despite three cash wins in four months.

We should be able to keep playing tournament poker in the place where we're going. But we've decided it's not easy for us to make a living at it. It's a "side hustle", but nothing more.

Regular readers know this will be our second move to another state since we started this blog. As a wise person once said: "The only thing constant in life is change." Yet some things in our lives are exceptions to that....

I the Lord do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob are not destroyed. - Malachi 3:6

Some people make this a blanket statement about God. He never changes anything. Period. Yet careful Bible readers can spot times when God changed the rules for doing things.

The Lord said to Moses, "Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water...." - Numbers 20:7-8

God told Moses earlier to strike a rock to get water (Exodus 17:6). In his anger, Moses struck the rock in the second case. He defaulted to God's original instructions - and paid for it:

But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, "Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them." - Numbers 20:12

So sometimes, God can change His ways. And even more importantly, He wants you to change yours.

Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. - Isaiah 55:7

To borrow from a classic rock song: you've got to change your evil ways. Read the Bible carefully, then examine yourself.... asking: Is that what I'm doing?

(P.S. Blog updates may diminish over the next few weeks, due to our move.)