WATERLOO --- They say the first time is always the hardest.

Tell that to Joe Pelton, a former West High graduate who made it to his second million-dollar Texas Hold'em poker tournament in just over a month.

Pelton finished third Friday night in the World Poker Tour Festa Al Lago Championship at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas.

While the ultimate winner, Andreas Walnum, walked away with the $1.1 million prize, Pelton still got $292,000 out of the deal. Again, Pelton was the only amateur player at the final table, but he held a $1.3 million lead in the chips over the five other contestants.

"It was tough the first time I went out to one (of these big tournaments), I was pretty intimidated by some of these big name players," he said. "Once I played with a few of the big name players and saw how they played, I realized they're just guys playing cards and they make mistakes."

Pelton won his first World Tour of Poker title and nearly $1.6 million in September at the 2006 Legends of Poker championship at the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens, Calif.

In 1940, Allen Dowling, writing under the pseudonym Jack King, included a now-legendary quote in his book "Confessions of a Winning Poker Player": "Few players recall big pots they have won, strange as it seems, but every player can remember with remarkable accuracy the outstanding tough beats of his career."

Many poker players know that quote. It even made the 1998 film "Rounders," with Matt Damon and Ed Norton.

Pelton remembers the hand that beat him Friday night. He played aggressively all night --- raising bets early and drastically --- but his stack dwindled with each hand. Within three hands, he lost his hefty chip lead. He can even recite the hands that beat him in order.

"There were a lot of really though decisions I had to make when I had marginal hands," he said. "... Basically, my goal was to try to be aggressive and get people to move off of their hands. But I just ran into such good hands and I didn't slow down my aggression, even when it was clear that it wasn't working."

Pelton left Waterloo to study engineering at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, Calif. He started playing nickel and dime poker games, a far cry from the $2,000 antes at his most recent tournament.

Pelton has had a knack for numbers. He finished second in the state Mathcounts competition in eighth grade. That's made him an ace in the poker world, but his mother Karen Schmidt thinks there's something else helping him.

"You can't win one of those tournaments without a little luck," Schmitt said.

Schmidt said she was a little surprised when Pelton told her he was in the final table so quickly after winning the last tournament. But then again, she said she never expected him to be a semi-professional poker player either.

Schmidt said she talked to Pelton right before his tournament Friday night. He was confident that he'd do well and that he would "play his game."

Pelton said he still plans to keep his day job as a business systems analyst at an insurance company in Newport Beach, Calif., despite winning nearly $2 million in under two months.

Half of the winnings will probably go to the Internal Revenue Service and the rest has been invested in stocks, he said. Eventually he'll buy a house when the housing market calms down, he said.