Pictures at the Poker Table
My two favorite hobbies at the same time
I’ve been playing poker since at least the early 2000s. Like many others, I got into it during the craze after Chris Moneymaker won the World Series of Poker in 2003. Turns out I was pretty good at it. Over the years I’ve won significantly more than I’ve lost. In fact, after of the nice camera lenses I still have, were bought with poker winnings. I think the first time I got the idea to take pictures at the poker table was in 2009 during my second deployment to Iraq.
I think I actually played more poker the first time I was in Iraq in 2007, but I didn’t take many pictures then. We also played for cash instead of gift cards.
I had had a stretch of years when I lived in Texas where I mostly played online poker (so no picture). I did have a couple of months where I was on temporary duty to Camp Blanding, Florida and would go up to the Orange Park Greyhound track a couple of times a week for tournaments. I won three of the small tournaments and cashed is half a dozen more. But I can’t find any pictures.
Then after I retired from the active duty Air Force, I moved to Fort Huachuca Arizona for a job, and about a year into it, I discover a little poker room.
This was great! They had cheap tournaments ($10-$40 buy-ins) on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. They also had two cash game tables, but I very rarely stat down there, as tournaments are much more my specialty.
Most/all of these pictures were taken with my phone (don’t even remember which model, maybe an LG G5). What I really love about taking pictures in the poker room though, is the expressions on people’s faces.
I again, I won relatively often during my time in Sierra Vista. At the time, I was still totally supporting my family back in Texas, so I often just went and bought “fancy” groceries with my winnings. The thing is though, even if I’d never won a dime, the poker room was my main source of socialization and camaraderie. That’s something money can’t buy.
After I left Fort Huachuca, I (briefly) moved to Fort Sill Oklahoma. This was poker heaven, and there were several real casinos with regular tournament schedules right there in town. I played almost every weekend I was in town, and often on Wednesday evenings as well. Won more than I lost here too. And again, the characters at the table were always entertaining.
Finally when I moved down to San Antonio, we didn’t have any casinos close by, but I did discover a bar poker league. This was actually a pretty good deal. The buy-in was “free” (you got more chips if you bought beer and food, so not really free), but they paid out real cash at the end of the night. Usually just to the top 3 or 4, and only like $100 or $150 to the winner, but still good entertainment. And again, plenty of interesting characters at the tables.
In addition to the people at the table, sometimes I just took pictures of the cards, the chips and the money …
Of all the images in this post, the following may be the most painful to recall. I got knocked out of the tournament on that last card, one place out of the money.
It’s all good though, I didn’t quit playing, and sometimes even dressed the part.
So what do you think?
(Do you have any good poker stories?)
Til next time,
Todd
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Great faces. Poker table stress is REAL. First responders to the turn of a card.
And of course I have a story.
Played lightweight poker with friends of my wife from Dentistry connection. Could be a stereotype and might be hateful, but dentists tend to be cheap. At least the ones I met. I always thought it was because they get to be called Dr. but don't rake in Cardio-Bucks.
Whatever.
I know very little about the game beyond what beats what and generally just follow table cues, so I may get some of the specifics wrong here.
The dentist my wife worked for was tighter than dick's headband, as the saying goes. He would never lose more than $50 under any circumstance. He and his wife arrived, she sat down and sat in immediately to play for him while he went to mix drinks.
I believe the game was called Acey Deucy. If you got doubles, you could split them. It entailed a progressive pot and matching the pot that could run the bill up quickly. She drew doubles, split and was in a situation in which only two cards could beat her.
The variation of pot match was called "Put Up or Shut Up," which opened the option of losing everything twice. Almost impossible with only two losers, total of eight cards out of 52.
Naturally, both were drawn.
The good doctor who had never lost more than 50 bucks in his life and who would fold while holding two pair if somebody raised a quarter, was down $116 before he got to the table. A photo of that face would be priceless.