Playing for Pruitt
The shirts that Gay and Walker are wearing read "Playing for Pruitt" and display a photo of a U.S. Army unit along with the names of each member of the unit. One name on the shirt is that of Gay's son, Pruitt Rainey.
"He was supposed to leave Afghanistan in a few days," Walker said of Rainey. "He was on his second tour and was supposed to be coming home."
Rainey was a corporal in the U.S. Army's 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade when the outpost his unit was defending in Wanat, Afghanistan came under attack from more than 200 Afghan insurgents on July 13, 2008. Rainey and eight of the other ten members of the unit died in the attack.
"He loved poker so much," Walker said as she watched Gay play. "He played poker with the soldiers in his unit every night. It got to the point where he won so much from them, he had to pay them for them to let him play with them."
Gay, who has a small glass card capper with a photo of his son inside it, is joined at the 2009 WSOP Main Event by four other players from his Tuesday night home game in Vaoldosta, Georgia who are all "Playing for Pruitt". Bill Sineth amassed 71,000 chips on Day 1b; Earl Holmes, Roy Swindle and Allen Kennedy (who took 50th in the Main Event last year for $135,100) are also in the field today as well.
Our deepest condolences and best wishes for a deep run go out to Gay, Walker and each of the other members of the Playing for Pruitt team.