I'm not sure what it is about my camera and Isabelle Mercier. If she's having a bad day, my pictures come out blurry, grainy, or poor-framed. If she's having a good day, the pictures come out looking like this:

I took that picture at 7pm tonight. When it came out looking nice, I should've known something was up. However, she was busy in a hand and I didn't stop to chat. Later, I realized Isabelle was having a much better day than evening her chip stack suggested.

When I sauntered up a little later in the evening, Isabelle's stack was just a little below average, but she was glowing.

"This will be my first cash of this World Series," she said.

I sort of cringed. I mean, I didn't want to say anything about putting any horses before any carts. It was still pretty early in her event.

"This one?" I said, hoping she was just being Isabelle-optimistic.

"No," she said, her accent a little more pronounced. "That one."

I followed her pointing finger over to the HORSE event. It was then I had one of those, "Ohhhhhh," moments.

"Bruno and I swapped," she said.

Before long, she'd described the terms of her 5% chop Bruno Fitoussi. At the time, he was four-handed. Now, at nearly 1:30am PDT, Fitoussi is three-handed and holds a serious chip lead. Isabelle is guaranteed $40,000 from his win and could make as much as $110,000.

"A hundred grand," she mused.

It was enough that when Tobey "Spiderman" McGuire sat down at her table, she barely seemed to notice. She continued to play, her skull card capper looking out icily form her chip stack.

The thing is, Isabelle is still alive in the $5,000 short-handed No-Limit Hold;em event. She could win considerably more money if she final tables this one. Still, with her buddy three-handed for the $50K HORSE bracelet, it's not uncommon to see Isabelle standing up and looking toward the chip count screens.

Regardless of what happens tonight, Isabelle is walking away a winner. Hopefully, she'll make it a double cash and we'll see how her pictures look tomorrow.

Update: Isabelle finished just short of the money in the $5,000 Short-handed event. However, Fitoussi ended up finishing second in the HORSE event, so that's not a bad day for Isabelle.