TPT Archive: Death Makes a Visit to Table 3, Seat 9.

Death Makes a Visit to Table 3, Seat 9.
(previously posted at Texas Poker Trails, October, 2006)

When he first sat down at the table, I barely noticed him. I was playing Table 3 at the Winstar Casino and was not particularly doing well. Grinding it out at the table, playing for hours without making or losing much money; just existing in that netherworld of the poker universe where your senses are dulled by hour after hour of lousy cards. I was staring mostly at my chips and practicing my hand tricks, tossing chips between fingers, shuffling small stacks, paying attention to mostly the dealer and occasionally the players around me.

Table 3, Seat 9 opened up when a young player tossed in his last few chips as a donation. He was disgusted and broke. A middle-aged man sat down and began to play. He was just another guy, another player, someone who enjoys playing cards like the rest of us. I barely saw him.

Then something happened.

I first noticed him leaving his seat to answer his cell phone. Like a thousand times before, a player's phone vibrates (or worse, it rings loudly with some God-awful ring tone) and he or she must leave the table to answer it. I noticed him speaking on his cell phone just a few feet beyond the dealer's position. After a short time, he sat back down and began to fumble with his chips. He looked distracted. He looked up and asked for a rack, "I've got to leave." His voice was broken, shallow, almost a whisper.

We at the table thought nothing of it until a few minutes later, maybe seconds. This was just a guy who got a phone call and had to leave. He only played three hands, maybe four. We found out from the dealer what was happening.

"That guy just found out his son was killed in a car crash," the dealer said. I immediately turned around and looked at the man, standing with poker room personnel at the Cage; they were helping him cash out his chips and offering support for his obvious grief. The news spread quickly about his situation. He was standing at the counter with chips in hand, trying to get a grip on how his life had changed in the last few seconds. He was weeping, struggling to find a way to cash out, make it to his car, then home, or the hospital, or the morgue. "What do I do? Where do I go?" How does a father process the news that his son has just tragically died?

I hated to stare at the man, but I did. On his right was the poker room manager, two security guards were standing just behind him. The Cage is located in the right front corner of the poker room, so to his left was the front wall. He was facing the glass enclosure waiting for his money. His grief was enormous. He placed the rack of chips on the counter and broke down. Placing his head in both hands, he began to cry uncontrollably in the corner of the poker room, leaning into the wall to avoid collapsing.

As I watched the man weep for his son, I noticed above his head the neon message sign: "Splashpot Mondays," "Jackpot is now $14,360!,"Aces Cracked on Tuesdays pays $100." The wall-sized projector screen showing the player waiting list was on the front wall just beyond the message sign, naming scores of other gamers waiting to play $4/$8 Limit and $1/$2 No Limit. The sounds of chips and dozens of voices continued to fill the room like every other day. "Seat open on Table 15," a dealer yelled. "Food service on Table 5," someone else yelled. While a grieving father's heart was being torn apart weeping for his son near the Cage, the heart of the poker room never missed a beat.

At Table 3 we were subdued, quiet, trying to understand what just occured. "I can't believe they told him here," I said. "Why didn't they wait until he was surrounded by family or friends?" Others made similar comments. We could not understand the reasons for giving someone such tragic news over the phone. Why not tell him to hurry home, then tell him? Was he going to be able to drive home? His son was only 16?

"Puts this game in perspective, I guess," the player in seat 8 finally said. "I guess losing or winning a few bucks is not that important." I shook my head in agreement with him, and we all continued to play the game. After a while, though, I decided it was time to go. I left having lost a few dollars, but it didn't matter.

Texas Poker Trail is Now The 7 Seat...A Blog Makeover

For the past year I've been writing a poker blog at TexasPokerTrails.com. However, I felt it was time for a makeover and name change. So now Texas Poker Trails has been closed and replaced by The Seven Seat (sevenseat.com), or if you prefer, the 7Seat.com.

I'll be posting here a few older pieces I've written from earlier days at TPT. I'll title them with the header "TPT Archive:........"

My Darkroom Collection: Children

This is one of my personal favorites. I was on assignment at a picnic-like event, I can't remember what exactly (the published photo in the newspaper is in a box somewhere), but I do remember the moment I took this shot. I was walking through the park area and saw this old lady sitting in a lawn chair. This beautiful young girl sat on the arm of the chair and embraced her. Just as I lifted my camera, the girl looked back across the old woman's shoulders and I took the shot.

The contrasting features in this photo are obvious. I love the white hair of the old woman, the embrace, the look of innocense and peace on the young girl. Youth and old age, the beginning of a life with its hope for the future and the end of a life with its memories of other days.

I took this photo on assignment for Stephen F. Austin State University. It was 1988 or 1989, and the event was the Lumberjack Festival on campus. These kids were dressed up as beer bottles.

Boo, Mike, Wayne

I really like these old photos of Boo and my two older brothers.

I'm not sure wear this photo of Mike and Wayne was taken. My memory is of a boys camp in the east Texas piney woods, a rustic camp setting for troubled teens. Mike and Wayne were asked to perform for the group by someone like the Baptist Student Union on campus at Stephen F. Austin State University, or perhaps by our father who was a volunteer music director at a small country church in the area. I have little memory of the event.

This photo of Boo was taken in New Orleans. She is holding Jaalam, my nephew. It really shows my mother in the prime of her life. All I remember of the trip to see Mike and his family at New Orlean Baptist Theological Seminary is that I got food poisoning and threw up most of the weekend. In fact, I believe the reason for the trip was Mike's graduation from the seminary.

I'm Coming Back.

I studied photography in college, primarily photojournalism. I always loved the action of real life photography. For a degree I had to shoot fashion shots, spending time in the studio working with models that were recruited from among my friends on campus. I had to shoot product shots for print advertising. I must admit I hated the studio. And working for hours trying to adjust the lights on a bowl of cereal was not that exciting.

I wanted to be among people, on the street, in a football stadium, at a press conference, following a presidential campaign. I've shot photos of Presidents Bush Sr., Ford, and Clinton. I've covered high school football games, parades, political campaigns, and other forms of everyday life. For me, art is in the reality of people and the world in which we live. I want to shoot life as it happens, and look for the beauty that is there, in its simplicity.

I can walk down the street and see expressions of our existence in various forms: the golden chain hanging from the umbrella pole at a Starbucks, cigarette butts collecting near a drain pipe, a mother caressing her infant struggling with a grocery cart, flood victims clinging to their porches while watching their neighbors homes float down a swollen creek.

Life equals art.

But my photography career ended roughly around 1993. I began to do other things. I developed other interest like real estate, writing, church, family. My photography slowly became a memory, something I "used to do" when I was younger. But the love for it was always there.

So now, as I reach the time of my life where middle age is a reality and old age approaches like an uninvited guest, I desire to spend more time with a camera. I also want to post some of the photos I've taken from another time, another life.

So I guess I'm back.

Jaalam Aiken's Photo Creations

My nephew has become an excellent photographer. Check out his work at JMAPhotoCreations. I especially like his work with photoshop enhancements and use of light and framing.

Jimmy, Jerry, Troy and Super Bowl XXVII

This picture of Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson was taken backstage after the Cowboys Super Bowl parade in February of 1993. The Cowboys won Super Bowl XXVII, beating the Buffalo Bills 52-17. I was covering the parade freelance, selling some photos to local newspapers in north Texas. The photo is not that great, but I only had one shot. Jerry and Jimmy were bouncing around backstage and I quickly got them to stand still long enough for a pose.

Earlier the same day, during the parade, I was riding with Troy Aikman and Jason Garrett in an open car. The parade route wound its way through downtown Dallas with thousands of fans encroaching on the players. Although Troy is smiling in this shot, he and I and Jason were all nervous about the crowd. It was indeed a dangerous situation. At one point, policemen on horseback were called in to seperate the crowd from the open vehicles. Other journalists were packed in around us and were saying it was like being in a war zone.

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The following year when the Cowboys won their second Super Bowl, the parade was held in downtown Dallas, but that year the players were on huge open flatbed trucks high above the crowd. Police barriers were also more established and security was increased. Troy would go on to become a member of NFL Hall of Fame and Jason Garrett is currently the Offensive Coordinator of the Cowboys.