A Spot of Color

When I'm covering a poker tournament like the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event, I enjoy looking for the "color" stories. That's especially true on the early days of the tournament since most of the pots that develop are small relative to the sizes of the chip stacks. Nobody cares much what happens on Day 1 of an eight-day poker tournament.

Today my search for color brought me to Table 91, where Frankie Gay was seated. Gay and his fiancee Shea Walker were wearing matching "Playing for Pruitt" shirts. Gay's son Pruitt Rainey -- an avid poker player -- was a soldier killed in Afghanistan on July 13, 2008. I listened to Gay's and Walker's story, asking a few respectful questions along the way so that I could do a thorough write-up of this "color" for the blog. They were surprisingly composed.

I thought about my own brother. It was never easy for us. At times I resented the fact that I had acquired the functional equivalent of a twin when I was five years old. Everything we did was shared, everything we received was shared. For a long time we were treated identically in all ways, I think so that neither one would feel like the other was more important, or more loved or more special. That was tough for me. From my brother's side, he didn't even look like the rest of the family, so how easy could it have been for him?

He's on his second tour in Iraq now, scheduled to come home in a few months. I'm not sure if I could have been as composed as Gay and Walker if someone were asking those questions of me about my deceased relative. And this is for a brother with whom I've never had a solid relationship. I can't imagine what it's like to answer those questions regarding your own son.

As I've gotten older I've found that things which would have just rolled off my back in the past affect me more deeply. Listening to these two fine Georgians talk about a young kid and how much he loved to play poker -- and then thinking about the tragedy of his death -- hit me in a way I wouldn't have expected. But I suppose I'm at the end of a long, rough summer. Maybe with a few solid days of sleep I'll feel right as rain and not give a second thought to that kind of story.

(Sorry no poker content today. Back tomorrow with Part 2 of the big draws post.)