I did make it to the Rio yesterday afternoon and went on a picture taking trek through the tables in the Amazon and Pavilion Rooms.  I got snap happy and managed to take around 400 pictures in a fairly short time.  Some of the players are very recognizable, yet many are poker faces from who knows where, hoping to become recognizable with some bling hanging from their wrist and a fat wallet to show for their time at the table.

The picture taking is kind of comical – from my perspective anyway – at times I feel shy about waltzing around with a camera aimed at players…it almost makes me feel like I’m sneaking a peak into the inner sanctum of their soul as they sit with haunted eyes, waiting for the next hand. I never feel that way about Tom Dwan though, he’s too busy to even notice if anyone is there with a camera as he continuously pounds out text messages and checks his phone while he’s playing. But the rest of the world, at times, leaves me feeling as if I should just move on and not intrude on their little slice of time and energy at that moment.

Not so last night, I felt like snapping everyone that I could capture and almost all of the players were open, looking up, looking at me with the camera, and some were talkative as I moved around to different positions and tried to get a good shot of everyone.  I hate bad pictures of people and I refuse to post any of them.  I’ve sometimes caught people with their tongue half out as they lick their lip or with a big, dreary yawn, or a grimace, and I don’t care for those pictures at all…a poker face will do…a smile or interested in life look is even better.  I caught this gal standing up looking at a hand – she wasn’t in it – and she has a ‘look’ that I liked so she got to be my poker subject for this article.

On the fun side, I caught this kid before he won the Gold:

Milling around through the tables on this venture was like homecoming.  There are people that are always happy to see me and I found a lot of them.  Kristy Gazes is pointing at her neck in this picture because she didn’t know I had ink on mine until just then.  She’s cute.

Joe Hachem looked extremely tired when I walked up to his table, but he managed an ex-cell-en-te smile for this shot.  Nice!

As I milled around one area, filling up my memory stick, Ted Forrest was up out of his seat doing toe raises.  I couldn’t help but chuckle.  After he sat down, I walked over and asked him if he was burning calories with that move.  He said absolutely.  Then I asked how he was doing on the weight loss bet with Mike Matusow, he said he was walking about four hours a day and had cut way back on food, to almost nothing.  I asked if he thought that was hard on his body, he said no, that he felt fine and was handling it OK.  I made the comment that he did have a pretty strong mindset when it came to controlling his body – all one has to do is check out the prop bets he’s made over the years to know it is fact.  I asked if he thought he’d make the first bet date with Mike Matusow.  Ted said he wasn’t sure if he’d make the one by WSOP time but he was sure he could make the September date.  Two shots of Ted for the curious:

For the first time in my picture taking career I caught Kathy Liebert smiling.  Nice!  Her whole face lights up:

This guy always has a smile for me and I have one for him:

And so does this guy.  He’s a delight to see in the crowd of faces:

David Singer was entertaining Ben Roberts (above) and the table as he told them how when he first started playing online poker that the other players made fun of him about how bad he played.   The table all laughed as he said the fish shouldn’t be chased away – they should be treated well so they will stay.  Naw…those weren’t his exact words but that’s what it came down to and the whole table was enjoying the moment. I found myself laughing out loud.

I’m sure you can’t tell from the picture that Tom McEvoy lost this pot…but he did.  It was a Razz hand, hence standing up and looking down the table isn’t uncommon.  He didn’t flip-twitch out or anything but he did appear to be a bit disgusted with the whole thing:

Jan Fisher was more than generous as she said hello and complimented me on my writing skills and posts here on Tango.  She may not like this photo as much as I do but it shows a side of her character that isn’t often exposed at a poker table.

I can’t help but always feel some strange twist of curiosity about the guy that can run 10K up into Millions and then run it back down to zip – and never regret or think anything should be any different than the way it went.  Archie Karras:

I dealt to Morris for years – at The Mirage and at Bellagio – it was nice to see him again at the WSOP.  He’s a kind soul with a kind heart…how the hell did he ever get into Razz?  Just kidding!

I stopped by Daniel Negreanu’s end of the table to take pictures of players on the other end.  He looked at me and said, “Well, hello there.”  Ahhhh-h-h…so he does remember me…I think!  We did jabber for a minute, he said he’s working out and has more energy now than ever and feels really good.  I’m glad that he is and does and will be…he’s a great representative for poker.

For now, this grannie is off to SandWoman Land.  g’nite.