Stud Adventures: Foxwoods, Felicia, and QQWIN99

 I woke up early on the morning of November 4th and drove from cloudy Narragansett, Rhode Island to Foxwoods, Connecticut. Senor had to work so I did the drive by myself in less than 40 minutes, grabbing Dunkin' Donuts along the way. I found out that the World Poker Finals events were being held in the Sunset Ballroom on the ground floor instead of the poker room. On that particular day, they were running a $1000 Stud event. I wandered down there and waited for Felicia and Glenn to arrive. They also held the single table satellites for various World Poker Finals events and QQWIN99 in the ballroom. They moved the entire operation from the entrance to the Smoke Free Casino to the ballroom.

I had not seen Felicia and Glenn since I was in Vegas last Spring with Derek when we were sweating Glenn as he played in a satellite for the WPT Championships at the Bellagio. It was good to see them and catch up. Felicia came up to Foxwoods solely for the Stud events and Glenn was playing mixed games (NL and satellites). We walked inside and Foxwoods had a breakfast buffet set up for the players. We were milling around the sign in desk when Greg Raymer walked over to Felicia and myself. "I hope I'm not at your table," he joked with Felicia. Holy shit! Fossil Man in the flesh. I was taller (something that surprised me) and he was wearing a red Pokerstars shirt and shorts. Felicia introduced me as "a real writer." We shook hands and Fossil Man and Glenn began discussing a hand he had the night before at the NL table when his pocket aces were beat to a middle pair when the guy flopped a set. A few moments later, Felicia introduced me to Jean Gaspard. One of the last entries I read on her blog was about Jean and I got to place a face with a name. He also was very cordial and seemed interested that I was "a real writer." That was cool of Felicia to say that twice. It made me feel like I was a real writer even though I was slacking off and should have been hard at work writing my new novel, instead I was hanging out with poker pros talking shop at 8:50am on a Thursday.

I wished Felicia luck and Glenn and went upstairs to play some poker. He wandered off to the no limit table and I signed up for low limit Stud on the brand new computerized system. I was finally seated at a 1-5 table. I was the youngest by at least 25 years.

The Stud players...

Seat 1: Pauly

Seat 2: WWII vet

Seat 3: Paulie Walnuts from The Sopranos

Seat 4: TJ Cloutier lookalike

Seat 5: Boston taxi driver

Seat 6: Man older than God (WWI vet?)

Seat 7: Loose Lute Olsen

Seat 8: Boston taxi driver

Two guys at my table were retired Beantown taxi drivers. They didn't know each other either and were yapping the entire time. I got the worst seat (by the way what is the best seat at a stud table, Felicia?) but the guy next to me was a really nice guy. We spoke but he didn't feel it was important to incessantly chat about nothing, so our conversations weren't forced. I wasn't in a big mood to talk much, especially a few days after the election, where that seemed to dominate the majority of the table chatter. The guy across from me who looked like Paulie Walnuts was hilarious. He hit on every single waitress (even the not so good looking ones). The guy in the corner who looked like Lute Olsen saw every hand to the river. Yeah, I'm just 32 and I was the youngest person at the Stud tables.

I bought in for $100 and played for four hours. I lost $95. Most of it was on two big hands. The first one was when I had AJ/A. Loose Lute's door card was a King and he had been calling with nothing but K high. He ended up catching running Kings on sixth and seventh street to beat my two pair. That was ugly. On another hand, I lost the biggest pot of the session to the Boston taxi driver. I had rolled up aces! What are the odds of that happening? AA/A. I jammed the pot at every instance, check raising, and rerasing anyone who played back. The taxi driver caught running diamonds on sixth and seventh street to suck out a flush. Paulie Walnuts missed his flush draw and ended up hitting a backdoor straight on the river. I had a set of Aces, praying on the last two cards that I'd pair any of my up cards. Nothing and I left soon after that ugly hand. For the session I played very tight and there was a thirty minute stretch when I had to bring it in every time! It was getting annoying but what are you going to do? That's stud. I didn't get too many playable hands especially at a table where five or six people saw cards through fifth street. The few pots I won were when I actually bluffed at the pot when I missed my draws. I guess my opponents missed theirs too otherwise I never would have scooped any pots.

I went over to find Glenn and I didn't see him. He expected Felicia to last for a while and I went downstairs to find them. After I couldn't find them I realized she was probably KO'd early. As I wandered around the tournament tables I made eye contact with Fossil Man. I asked him if he knew were Felicia was. He pointed at the far table and when she wasn't there I figured she was busted. I was busted too! I only took $100 with me, not expecting to play much. After one last tour of the poker room, I picked up a copy of Cardplayer, signed out and grabbed a free lunch at the food court. I love Foxwoods chicken fingers.