Me at the table

I think it's probably safe to let the Lone Ranger's mask slip a little bit, so to speak.

Last Sunday I participated in a private tournament at Treasure Island, hosted by http://www.allvegaspoker.com/, the best web site for rating, learning about, and discussing Vegas poker rooms. I wasn't the first player knocked out, but I did earn the distinction of being the first one to be knocked out twice, since my re-buy wasn't terribly successful.

To the best of my knowledge, nobody has ever previous taken a picture of me while I'm playing poker. I wasn't even aware that photos were being taken, being rather focused on the game. (The whole bunch of them is posted at http://www.allvegaspoker.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3018, from which page I stole these. I don't know who to credit as the photographer.)

In the first one, I'm only barely visible--the guy at the far end of the table, with the brown sweatshirt. This appears to be the hand on which I lost 99% of my chips, with my pocket jacks running into a flopped set of 10s against the opponent in the foreground. It looks like the flop that killed me has just been dealt. I'm looking confident with my overpair. I don't yet know that I'm basically dead.

The second picture must have been taken very shortly thereafter. I was left with only 50 in chips after that debacle (I think we started with 3000), so they had to go in with any two cards. You can see that I'm looking annoyed (not exactly a rare occurrence), with no chips on the table in front of me (which, fortunately, is a rare occurrence).

Oh well. It was a fun event anyway.



Addendum, October 2, 2007:

Not that anybody will care, but I see now that the second picture isn't from immediately after the first. I should have noticed three things: First, there's a different player on my right (on the left in the photos) in the second picture; second, there's another table behind me instead of a wall; third, the felt on the table is completely different! So obviously this photo was taken after I changed tables. I got knocked out from the first table, then moved to this one. I lasted only about 5 or 6 hands before the second bust-out. The guy on the left of the second photo (known to me only as "The Other Dave" or "OD") was the one who beat me. I had A-K, he had 7-7. Flop missed him, but he made a standard continuation bet. The flop paired my king, so I moved all in. He had to call, because it didn't cost him much more. He caught runner-runner straight to bump me off. So this photo must have been taken right while we were waiting for the turn and/or river to be dealt, because all my chips are in, but I haven't stood up to go yet.