Poker Night 508: The Old Man and the Shove

On our last night before leaving a church convention, we decided there was time to try one more tournament at Casino Choctaw-Durant. The finish was better - and also more memorable:

BLINDS: 1,000/2,000

IN THE POCKET: A-Q offsuit

We won the first three hands of the tournament, then claimed several more after that. That's led us to the final table, after more than three hours of play. But with seven players remaining, we're now desperate. With only 2,000 chips left, good cards may have come for us in the nick of time.

"I'm all-in, and I call," we tell the table. But an older man across from us (we'd guess at least 75) is distracted by what happened a few hands ago. A woman won a big pot from him, by staying in a hand he thought she should have avoided. After accusing her of "not knowing how to play," he seems to be on tilt. Yet he doesn't raise, and five players get in for the minimum.

ON THE FLOP: K-9-4 (third card may not be precise)

This doesn't look promising for us - and even less so when players start betting. The woman to our left offers (as best we recall) 3,000. The older man responds by going all-in.

"What are you going to do?" he asks us. Answer: sit and watch.

"I'm all-in," we remind Mr. Accuser. Other players have folded, except for the woman who has him bothered. She takes a moment to think about this.

"Hurry up. I've got to go home and feed the dog," the older man says. We can't resist laughing out loud at that line. The woman finally calls, and it's time to show our cards.

The woman at our left has J-9. The older man shoved with 9-2. She's in the lead thanks to her kicker, but we have two very live cards.

ON THE TURN: 8

This card helps no one - and leaves us at the brink.

ON THE RIVER: 2

Aw, c'mon! We get knocked out, but the older man gets an amazing escape by hitting a second pair. So he starts singing the chorus of "Old Man River" - and we almost join him on the final notes, as we shake his hand!

We leave in seventh place, on a night with only 16 players. But at least we can say we made a final table at a casino where big tournaments happen - and we leave with the funniest poker story we've had in a long time.

MINISTRY MOMENT: We carried our "Lord's Supper" card protector again, and showed it to a woman sitting next to us. "What do you think of Jesus?" we asked her. She seemed surprised by the question.

"I'm not sure what you mean," she said. "He did everything He came to do.... He came to save the world."

It turned out that woman and two others at our table admitted to having Jesus as their Savior. That's good. But is that saving work finished yet?

...God our Savior.... wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. - I Timothy 2:3-4

That's what God wants. But we fear that's one place where skeptics point fingers of doubt. If God is all-powerful, can't He achieve what He wants? Why have some notorious people died, seemingly without coming close to being saved?

The answer may sound strange, but it's this: God is not trying to save everyone now. It would be great if that happened, but it's not the plan....

I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved.... - Romans 11:25-26

By "Israel," we think the apostle Paul refers to members of the "12 tribes" descended from Old Testament Israel (Romans 9:4/11:1). God has opened a way at this time for people outside those tribes to enter His family, while....

...The others were hardened, as it is written: "God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes so that they could not see and ears so that they could not hear, to this very day." - Romans 11:7-8

If some of our posts about the Bible leave you puzzled or confused.... well, believe it or not, we understand your confusion. In fact, it may be part of God's grand plan. We'll explain more about that in an upcoming post.

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 185 final tables in 508 nights (36.4%) - 37 cashes. This was our first final table since June; we'd missed five in a row.

Poker Night 507: The Price of Courage

At the church convention we're attending, the most personal impact has come from men's morning meetings. One of the topics Monday was "courageous leadership." We reviewed the story of David slaying Goliath (I Samuel 17) - then went to a casino Monday night and tried to apply the lesson.

Choctaw Casino-Durant in southeast Oklahoma has become a place with an international poker reputation. Its nice enclosed upstairs room has been used for WPT events, and the WSOP circuit arrives there in late October. But on a federal holiday, our $70 total buy-in gave us only about 16 opponents plus a couple who did a re-buy. Would we have enough courage (and wisdom) to get a big finish?

BLINDS: 50/100

IN THE POCKET: A-A

Small early efforts have missed flops. An aggressive player at the opposite end of the table has chased us off a couple of pots. But now we've hit a big moment: the best possible pre-flop hand and lead position at a table of seven. With about 5,600 chips, we limp in and hope for raisers - but there are none. About five players are in.

ON THE FLOP: Jc-9h-7c (second suit may not be precise)

So far, so good - except two of these cards are clubs. We want to stop potential flush-chasing. So when the blinds check, we try to show we mean business by betting 250. Two men call; the two blinds fold.

ON THE TURN: J

Uh-oh.... potential trouble. The board pairs. Is someone sitting on a Jack, for three of a kind? Since we're back in the leadoff seat, this is a perplexing moment.

To look courageous and test the mettle of the opponents, we raise the bet to 500. A man to our left calls. But the other man raises to 1,200. Deep inside, we sense big trouble - but there's been a little bluffing at the table, so we dare to call. But now, the man to our left re-raises to 2,500! And he gets called!

We conclude both men are serious. "I don't think so," we say as we fold. Are we right?

ON THE RIVER: 4

This card doesn't seem to matter. The man to our left goes all-in - and gets called again!

So what do they have? The man to our left shows J-9! The man to our right has J-7! It's "boat over boat," and the J-9 wins a huge pot.

"I'm glad I got out of that," we say.

"What did you have?" a man to our right asks.

"I had them topped before the flop," is all we reveal. We'll save the deeper lesson in courage for another day - but we fell behind on the flop, and an attempt at an even larger "go-away" bet would have only hurt our cause.

That was the sort of night we had. We split one pot with K-10, then won an all-in Big Blind bet right before the one-hour break. But we only had 2,325 chips from a starting 7,000 at that break. And when we pushed with A-Q early in Hour 2 and were called by A-J, an Ace on the flop was followed by a Jack on the river. We missed the final table by finishing in 13th place.

MINISTRY MOMENT: We showed our "Lord's Supper" card protector to an older man seated to our right. He recognized the image on it, then asked, "Is that a precious metal?"

We tried to steer things in a more godly direction. "Jesus's blood was precious, wasn't it?"

At that point, a new hand started. We're not sure if he grasped what we said. But perhaps you've wondered about that. Why do people consider the blood of Jesus "precious"? It comes from this verse:

It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless lamb of God. - I Peter 1:19 (NLT)

An online dictionary defines "precious" as "of high price or great value.... highly esteemed for some spiritual, nonmaterial or moral quality...." Here's why the blood of Jesus fits that description....

For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver.... - I Peter 1:18  (NLT)

No, the ransom paid to save us was Christ's blood. While we are all sinners, Jesus was not (I John 3:5). He was a perfect sacrificial lamb (John 1:29), whose blood can remove your sins in God's eyes (I John 1:7). Have you turned your sins to God, to have Jesus remove them from your record?.

UPDATED POKER SCOREBOARD: 184 final tables in 507 games (36.3%) - 37 cashes. We're now two-for-three in making final tables and the money, in games during church conventions.

Home and Away

Playing at home with friends and neighbors can be comfortable and enjoyable. But we've found some of our most satisfying poker results have occurred during road trips.

We think of this because we're about to start another trip, and hope to play in at least one tournament at our destination. We're not saying where we're going yet - but we'll have one overriding goal in mind:

He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation".... Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanies it. - Mark 16:15, 20

These words of Jesus and other verses have inspired what's known as the Christian "missionary" movement. It could be a school in Haiti or a hospital in west Africa. Sometimes it has been the result of difficult trials....

...On that day a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. - Acts 8:1

But we don't think you have to travel that far to fulfill Jesus's command. "Going" can be as simple as heading to the poker room in your neighborhood. We suspect people there need some "good news", too.

Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! - I Corinthians 9:16b

And so we hope to do that, in big and small ways. You're reading part of that right now. But we also try to do it when we enter poker tournaments.

We'll post the results of our road trip efforts as they happen. But in the meantime, as we mark our tenth anniversary of live poker, we plan to repost some memorable blog items from past years. If you've seen them before, please be patient - or invite someone new to see them for the first time.

The Game of Love

We've said it before in various ways: humans cannot live on poker alone. You know a poker channel has learned that lesson when it presents.... a dating show.

Chasing Hearts premieres online this week on PokerGO - six weeks of couples on blind dates, with a poker coach analyzing their "action" for possible "tells." We invite you to watch, then tell us how much of a stretch this is.

We're actually going to try to tie this in with poker, by saying we've seen couples play poker together. It's their idea of a "fun evening out", much like others go bowling or visit museums. We've even seen hints of romance develop at poker nights - but those moments happened in bars, so alcohol might have been a factor.

But is this any way to find real love? We can't speak fully from experience here, as we've never been married. But there's a great guidebook on love that many people tend to overlook....

Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. - Ephesians 5:1-2

Love should be more than a romantic mood. It should be a life - or perhaps better put, a way of life. It's a way shown by Jesus Christ when He walked on Earth. And believe it or not, Jesus never said the words, "I love you," to anyone.

...Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love. - John 13:1b

Jesus showed His love in many ways. In this chapter, He washed the feet of His disciples - apparently including the one who was about to betray Him (verses 26-27). Then Jesus said this:

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. - John 13:34-35

These words were spoken primarily to men - but there's no evidence Jesus meant this in a homosexual way. His point was to show compassion toward other people in general. And in addition...

If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. - John 15:10

The entire chapter says much more about what Jesus considered real love. We'll leave that for you not only to read, but apply to your own life.

If your idea of "love" is built upon game-playing, we think that's rather shallow. A deep love comes from compassion toward others and obedience toward God - and to borrow from an old song, is there really a greater love than that?

The Gut Shot

A short article on basic poker strategy offered this advice: "You should.... never ignore your gut. If your intuition tells you to play a hand, play it! It's usually right."

If we had a dollar for every time that was true.... well, sorry, but we wouldn't have many dollars.

There are many reasons for that. For one thing, your intuition can deceive you. We've played in tournaments where we tried a series of "hunches", and almost all of them failed. That only proves....

There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. - Proverbs 16:25

Your "right" move can end with you at the rail. Our most recent post had an example of that.

But look at it another way. Other people at your poker table also have "guts." If they all use their different intuitions and decide to get in a hand, can they all be right? It's somewhat like this....

What I mean is this: One of you says, "I follow Paul"; another, "I follow Apollos"; another, "I follow Cephas"; still another, "I follow Christ." - I Corinthians 1:12

These were four different ideas about living a Christian life - inside a church group! As logical as each faction probably thought it was, could they really all be correct? Proper logic should tell us the answer is no.

Yet if you've explored religious matters at all, you may have run into this. Lots of different faiths claim they're right - and that they're the only way to ultimate success and happiness. But the man who wrote I Corinthians shook off his own faction. Instead, Paul wrote....

For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. - I Corinthians 3:11

Paul declared Jesus is the right starting point for building your life (verse 10). He based that not on "guts," but on a personal encounter he had with Jesus years before (Acts 9).

In a poker game, knowing the odds of success with a particular hand can logically tell you whether or not to get in. In the game of eternal life, many have come to see that God, Jesus Christ and the Bible make the most sense spiritually. It can take some digging and asking tough questions, but it's worth it.

As one man once put it: the feeling in your "gut" may simply be that you had the wrong food for dinner. Take of Jesus, the "bread of life" (John 6:48), for the most satisfaction of all.

Hey, Big Spenders

We're not in a place where we can watch the relaunched Poker After Dark. But the show is making news for some big pots - and big blunders.

One hand posted this weekend finds pocket Aces getting crushed on the flop, when a man with A-4 gets trips with a 5-4-4 flop. The man with Aces apparently assumed a raise was a bluff; he re-raised, then went all in on the turn.

This is a classic case of "loose" play versus "cautious" play. A TV series like this tends to encourage looseness; this pot wound up totaling $980,000. But for the cautious player, an opponent raising on the  flop would have set off alarm bells.

So what sort of poker player are you? If you're playing with real money in a cash game, we'd bring up this verse....

A righteous man is cautious in friendship, but the way of the wicked leads them astray. - Proverbs 12:26

"Righteous" people might come across as cautious people. That's because they don't want anything to soil their righteous reputation. But if the righteousness comes from their own standards, there's a potential problem:

All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. - Isaiah 64:6

Our righteousness, as cautious as we might be, ultimately doesn't amount to much. We need something better.

But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.... - Romans 3:21-22

People who put their faith in Jesus receive God's version of righteousness. There might still be caution after that, but only because they don't want to bring shame on the name of Jesus in whom they've put their faith.

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness.... - I Timothy 6:10-11

Loving God and Jesus Christ leads to the right kind of righteousness. Being loose and "eager for money" does not. In fact, it can lead to costly mistakes. That advice may help you far from a table filled with Aces.

First Hearing

Our last post mentioned a poker championship in Ohio exclusively for "deaf" people - players with hearing impairments. It's good that those players can be out and active. But we'd like to ask: what if something could be done so they can hear?

Modern science is making it possible for children to hear, where they otherwise might not. But a man once walked on Earth who restored hearing in a more amazing way:

So he replied to the messengers, "Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor." - Luke 7:22

This was the report of Jesus Christ, given to disciples of John the Baptizer (as one well-known minister calls him). John had baptized Jesus (Luke 3:21), yet somehow developed doubts about whether He was the real Messiah. Jesus's answer was that the proof was in the miracles that He did.

There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man. After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man's ears.... He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, "Ephphatha!" (which means, "Be opened!"). At this, the man's ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly. - Mark 7:32-35

Jesus not only healed the man's hearing disability, but allowed him to speak clearly.

Some poker players long for a one-off card on the river to stay in a tournament. Yet Jesus accomplished greater miracles than that. And the Bible shows a time is coming when that will happen again....

Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped.... - Isaiah 35:5

This will occur when people see "the glory of the Lord" (verse 3). Tonight some believers will enter a season of the year that pictures the future time when that will happen - when Jesus returns to Earth:

...They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. - Matthew 24:30b

The season begins with what Jews call Rosh Hashanah, and some believers call the "Feast of Trumpets." Read more about it by clicking here. Perhaps God wants you to join the celebration, and look forward to the time when a Deaf Poker Championship is something in the distant past.