Dave is out

I'm hopeless. I knew that Day 2b of the Main Event would be winding down about now, so after writing that last post, I decided to make one last check for anything interesting that might have happened in the 30 minutes or so it took me to write it.

I was dismayed to find this PokerNews post:

Cantu Eliminates David Irish

Preflop, from middle position, Brandon Cantu made it 4,000 to go. David
Irish, in late position, raised it up to 11,000 and Cantu made the call. The
flop ran 4-4-X and Irish led out for 15,000 after Cantu checked. Cantu fired
45,000 back and Irish shoved all in. Cantu called and showed for flopped trips
while Irish turned over pocket queens. The fours held for Cantu and Irish was
eliminated.

David Irish is a local semi-pro who is supporting himself playing poker while finished a graduate degree in music at UNLV. He's one of the most popular members of the allvegaspoker.com forums, and keeps his own poker blog there. I've played with him a few times, and he's the real deal--a significantly better player than I am, in most ways. He's also a decent, likable, smart, funny guy and a fellow libertarian, politically. I'm genuinely sorry to see him exit before making the money. I thought he was on his way to making a bigger name for himself. He will, I'm confident of that--just not in this tournament, I guess.

That's him in the above photo, on the right. Not the greatest photo, but the first one I could find, and I'm too tired to keep looking for a better one.