New members, good times

The last few session of the Wall Street Poker league have been eventful. There was the brutal dismantling of Tommy Drama by Scott St. G in heads up play on Wed. night. The brutal suckout by The Slayer with 27 on the first hand vs. myself. Also, we entertained an exciting new member of the league, Carol, who promises to expand all of our horizons with regards to higher limit play and other games, Omaha in particular.

Friday was Carol's first time in the league. She comes to us via the F-Train poker blog (look it up). F-Train is a friend of the I Had Outs crew (Karol and Stephane) and, as such, is considered a FOAFOAF (Friend of a Friend of a Friend). Close enough for my tastes if you ask me. She is also part of a new group of members we are getting via writeups on other blogs. Most of those members have been successfully integrated into our Borg-like collective with one notable exception (see recent past blogs for details). Carol, suffice it to say, was fantastic and we hope to see much more of her in the future for reasons I will detail below.

Before I go into those details though, I want to quickly recap Friday's tourneys. These were exciting to me for the sole reason that I actually cashed twice, breaking a long drought for me! I feel like A-Rod hitting his 500th HR (which happened tonight actually). I played conservative but aggressive and I got paid off on my good hands. Like when my AA flopped an Ace and I checked called all the way to the turn by Eric D. When he checked the river and I value bet 700, he had to pay me off though I didn't see the strong hand he had (KK?). It was a few hands like that that kept me afloat, but then I ran into a dry spell of cards. Instead of pushing with hands like QT suited, I was patient, folded middle pocket pairs in bad position and waited for good spots. It worked, though by the time I got into second place heads up with Stephen P., I had a serious chip defecit I couldn't overcome. But I was happy enough to cash. The second tourney was more of the same and I got very lucky getting Scott St. G. to double me up twice in the later rounds when he ran 7c9c (or something similar) against my QQ when I pushed all in on the button vs. his big blind. He also pushed all in with 55 vs. my 99 in the opposite situation later on which put me into first place while simultaneously crippling his stack. Anthony C. took him out and we battled it out for a while. I emerged from a chip defecit to pull nearly even when we decided to chop and start a cash game.

Here's where my praise of Carol begins. We had a few cash game dropouts (curse you Darko!) and we only ended up with 5 willing players for a cash game. 5 is too few for a game of Hold'em and I was about to disband the effort when Carol said, "5 isn't too few for Omaha! Let's play that." I thought about it and since we're going to be spreading Omaha for the first time in a cash game on Tuesday, I thought this would be good just for practice. We agreed on $1/$2 stakes ($.50/$1 blinds) and we played Omaha Hi/Lo 8's or better until 5:30AM! Carol came out way ahead, of course, with Scott St. G making some money, Stephen P. breaking even and Paul H. and I losing some buyins. But the experience was great and playing with Carol was an eye-opener. She was also very helpful in teaching us how to read boards, split the pot in the expectation of Hi/Lo and decide what good folding/calling/raising hands were. Carol frequently plays in $15/$30 or higher limit games and sometimes 5/10 NL games, so for her to have the patience to endure our micro stakes and actually take the time to teach us, keeping in the spirit of this League, was saintly. We're thankful for her time and wisdom.

Incidentally, she also happens to be a fascinating person. Just a few nuggets I'm sure she wouldn't mind if I share...

1. She's Asian - Korean to be precise.
2. She's Jewish - From her father.
3. She's Mennonite - From her mother.
4. She's Adopted - Her parents adopted her from Korea when she was a baby.
5. She's a Corporate Lawyer (Corporate Finance)
6. She *used* to be an investment banker
7. She plays high stakes poker - at least for us. The stakes she plays are *just* below what a professional would play, though most semi-pros would play the same stakes.
8. She's very attractive - Not a nugget per se, just an observation. ;-)
9. She's extremely nice, generous AND *funny* - Another observation

For those of you who know me, the above list is almost exactly tailored to my wishlist of the perfect woman. It might be too early in our budding relationship, though, to propose marriage. (jus' kiddin'). The other obstacle there would be her boyfriend, who is most likely a large athletic man (an assumption based on the fact that he played Division I football for Florida State). :-)

All in all, a credit to our table.

Ok, now that I'm through with the placing on the pedestal, it's time for us to figure out how to felt her. She's a good player!!!

P.S. Carol had the best quote at the table given in some time. Here it is:
Scott St. G - "How can I get some of those chips from your stack?"
Carol - "More suckouts"