Introduction
Nine hours is a long way to travel for a poker trip, especially when you have not met everyone yet and you are a bit of an introvert. Still, the nerves of meeting people I had only known through poker, and the joy of settling into a shared Airbnb full of near strangers, was enough to make the adventure feel worth taking.
What started as a weekend built around a ladies’ tournament that Lucky Belcamino organized at Foxwoods Resort Casino, cash games, and late-night mixed games poker hands ended up becoming something much more meaningful. Yes, there were cashes to celebrate. Yes, there were hands to replay, inside jokes to build on, and shenanigans that stretched deep into the night. But the real story of Connecticut was not just about the results. It was about connection, confidence, and the different ways poker had already shaped the lives of the people who made the trip.
Some came to the weekend as longtime lovers of the game. Some came as returning players rediscovering an old passion. Some came because poker had given them friendship, purpose, or a stronger sense of self. Others were still learning what the game could offer them. What united everyone was not just a shared interest in poker, but a willingness to show up, take a social risk, and see what might happen when online connections became real-life ones.
There is something inherently vulnerable about agreeing to travel, stay under the same roof, and spend long days with people who are not quite strangers but not yet close friends either. Poker can create fast bonds, but real comfort still has to be earned. Before the first joke landed, before the first rail sweat, before the first late-night debrief around the Airbnb table, there was that quiet question every group trip carries with it: What will this actually feel like?
As it turned out, it felt easy.
Not forced. Not awkward for long. Easy in the way that only happens when the right people find one another at the right time.
These are some of my friends’ stories, some of whom have chosen to go by aliases.
CSUNS: Uniting Strangers Through Poker and Finding Confidence, Friendship and Belonging
I discovered poker in July 2021 through a women’s empowerment workshop at work, and I got hooked almost immediately. What surprised me was how much the game mirrored life and work. Poker is full of strategy, psychology, risk, and decisions made under pressure.
Soon after, I started playing online with a group of women, most of them beginners like me. The games were low stakes or no stakes, and we were all there to learn together. Coming out of COVID, with a young child at home and not much nightlife to speak of, those games became an unexpected social outlet for me. They gave me something fun, challenging, and surprisingly meaningful during a season when connection was harder to come by.
About a year later, I decided to try playing live. The first time I walked into a poker room alone, I took one look around, saw a sea of men and one experienced older woman, and immediately felt completely out of place. I was so intimidated that I turned around and walked right back out.
A few months later, I worked up the nerve to try again and entered my first real live tournament. I was terrified. My hands shook as I stacked my chips, and I was convinced I was going to break a rule or expose myself as a total novice. At one point, my watch even alerted me that my heart rate was unusually high. It took about ten live tournaments before I could finally sit down and feel calm.
That experience stayed with me. I knew I could not be the only beginner feeling that way, and I started thinking about how many new players might love the game if they just had a softer place to land. With the help of a private online poker club, The Community, I built a space within The Community focused on beginners and amateurs. I started a low-stakes women’s league where new players could practice cheaply, make mistakes, talk through hands, and slowly build confidence while still keeping things competitive.
Over time, our community grew into something much bigger. We started traveling to poker events up and down the East Coast, which gave me the chance to meet members of the group in person. At first, the routine was simple: say hello, play the tournament, bust out, and head home. Recently, though, we have taken it a step further by turning those trips into full Airbnb-style poker weekends.
Now, a group of us gets together for a full weekend of poker, meals, conversation, and plenty of laughter. We usually include one or two women who have never played live before, and part of the fun is helping them prepare. We go over the basics, talk through etiquette, answer questions, and try to make the whole experience less intimidating than it was for so many of us at the beginning. We play home games with different variants, break down interesting hands, and sometimes even stack each other just for fun.
The Community, an online poker group, has become a real community. These weekends have turned usernames into friendships. They have given us a place to laugh about bad beats, tease each other about failed bluffs, and enjoy the social side of poker just as much as the competitive side. One of my favorite parts is watching newer players grow more comfortable, from nervous first hands to confidently sitting down in a live poker room and feeling like they belong there.
My goal is to keep organizing more of these weekends every year: just a bunch of like-minded people who love the game, enjoy a little competition, and want to spend time learning, laughing, and playing cards together.
EBJ: More Than Cards, Chips, and Cashes
Poker may begin with a simple goal: win money. But the more I played, the more I realized this game of skill and luck can serve a much bigger purpose.
What once felt like a solitary pursuit has become a source of connection, memorable experiences, and the kind of moments I would not have had otherwise.
The Airbnb meetup games started with one obvious thing in common: poker. At first, it seemed that might be all we shared. But over time, the weekend became about much more than cards and chips. It became a reason for stories, laughs, and unlikely connections. The mix of casino play and railbirding each other’s tournaments brought an energy you simply do not get playing alone. While some battled it out at the tables, others held down the fort at the Airbnb, tracking results and keeping score on the back of a Chinese takeout menu, creating yet another inside joke for the collection.
In the grand scheme of things, the money won and lost felt negligible in this little world we created. We were far more invested in roasting one another, learning new poker variants, and having nowhere to hide when someone cracked your monster hand with something absurd. At one point, I even managed to keep my composure after losing a four-way all-in that ended with a slow roll and a full victory dance right in our faces. Under normal circumstances, that might earn someone a call to the floor. Here, it earned laughter, disbelief, and red wine-fueled fun.
At its core, poker is a game of risk and chance. On this trip, the real gamble was whether a group of people coming together like this would actually click. Somehow, by chance or good fortune, we all survived each other and had a great time doing it. Many of us came away better players, whether in Hold ‘Em, Omaha, Pineapple, or simply in our ability to sharpen a meme for the cheapest laugh possible.
Credit goes to everyone who showed up with an open mind and a willingness to let their guard down in what, to an outsider, might have looked like a very unusual setup. From the inside, though, it felt like exactly what poker can be at its best: competitive, memorable, and deeply human.
Anne: A Return to the Game, and Something More
I first started playing poker online on PokerStars back in 2004, when my girls were little and I was a stay-at-home mom. A friend suggested it, and it became a fun way to carve out a little grown-up time for myself. About a year later, I went back to work, life got busy, and poker faded into the background.
More than twenty years later, it found me again.
My college roommate from over thirty years ago, Axe, who is still one of my closest friends, had become part of a women’s poker community and league she absolutely loved. She encouraged me to check it out, telling me how much joy it had brought to her life. In August 2025, she invited me to join her at a live tournament at Mohegan Sun. I agreed, planning just to watch and get reacquainted with the game.
Instead, I found something special.
While I was there, I met a few women from The Community, including CSUNS, Jules, and Pete221, and it did not take long to realize this was more than just a poker group. They were welcoming, supportive, and genuinely passionate about the game. After that, I decided to join The Community myself.
A few months later, after getting some online play under my belt again, I was ready to take the leap into my first live women’s tournament at Foxwoods on February 28. The night before, my new friends at the Airbnb took time to walk me through the basics, the etiquette, and the little things that would make sitting down at a live table feel less intimidating. That meant a lot to me.
When I first sat down to play, I thought I would keep my head down and stay quietly focused. That plan lasted about five minutes. Before long, I was chatting, asking questions, and connecting with the people around me. At one point, I realized a woman two seats away was someone I had already played with many times online through The Community. Meeting face to face after getting to know each other virtually felt incredibly special. It turned an online connection into something more real.
Once I busted out of the tournament, I jumped into cash games, and that is when I really got hooked.
One moment I will never forget came during a $1/$2 no-limit Hold ‘Em game when I confidently raised to $3 and half the table burst out laughing. A regular named Peter, sitting next to me, laughed too and said, “You can’t do that.” But instead of making me feel embarrassed, he immediately took me under his wing. He started explaining the game, etiquette, and even how to properly treat the dealer. Because of that, I quickly felt more comfortable and, I think, earned some respect at that table and the ones that followed.
I finished on a high note, doubling my money at the last table I played. When I got up to leave, I thanked everyone and told them how much I had enjoyed playing with them. The dealer joked, “Anne, you can’t leave the table now!” before adding that it had been a pleasure having me there.
That stuck with me.
My girls are now in their late twenties and still at home, but I know the empty nest stage is coming. At this point in life, I have realized how important it is to keep building friendships, interests, and community for yourself, so that when the next chapter begins, you enter it with intention and a full life of your own.
What started as something a friend encouraged me to explore became something I never expected. Poker has brought me new friendships, new experiences, and renewed energy in my life.
James Cloutier: Fresh Energy, New Faces, and the Kind of Weekend Poker Is Supposed to Be
My Connecticut poker weekend started by picking Sara up at Bradley Airport. From there, we made the hour drive to Mohegan Sun before meeting the rest of the group for dinner at the Airbnb.
I had not been to either Connecticut property in close to a decade, and I had never played poker at Mohegan Sun before, so the whole weekend already felt charged with fresh energy. On top of that, I was about to meet several people in real life for the first time, which is always exciting. There is something special about going from knowing people online to actually sharing space with them.
Sara and I settled into separate cash tables at Mohegan, and my table turned out to be a great way to start the trip. Three guys in their twenties knew each other and kept the banter flowing, and I jumped right in. The energy was fun, easy, and exactly what you hope for when a poker trip begins.
Back at the Airbnb, our trip coordinator, CSUNS, was already there. Soon after, our friends Axe, Anne, and Jules arrived. These were people I had never met in person before, so we introduced ourselves, broke bread, and started swapping stories. Before long, the house already felt comfortable.
Later that night, Sara and I headed to Foxwoods to meet another friend from Twitter/X who was in town: The Hangry Asian. That meeting meant something to me. We had interacted online before, and when I was looking for charities for my 2025 Poker with Purpose drive, he told me about Halcyon Healing Center, an organization that helps veterans process trauma through horsemanship. I added it to the list, made a donation, and had wanted to meet him in person ever since.
We eventually got to share some table time, along with another younger guy at the table, and the three of us got along great. It was one of those table dynamics that reminds you why poker can be so enjoyable when the right people are in the mix. I ended up losing a few bucks that night, but after I left, Hangry told me the younger guy had said people like Hangry and me are what make the game enjoyable. That felt like a bigger win than anything I could have booked at the table.
Saturday was the big day: the women’s tournament at Foxwoods.
We got there early so everyone could get settled, and the energy of our group stood out almost immediately. This was Anne’s first live poker experience, even though she had played online dating back to before Black Friday, which made the day feel even more special. While the women played, I spent time in cash games, but I kept one eye on the event and the energy our crew was bringing into the room.
You could feel it right away. Sara would walk by on break and people would fist bump her. At one point, someone even compared her to Danica Patrick. People asked me about Axe and Anne. When CSUNS came by to give updates and bust-out stories, she drew attention too, and naturally I encouraged her to go play slots since poker had not been kind to her that day, as any good friend would.
Somewhere in the middle of all that, as I answered questions and talked up the women in our group, I started to feel like I had become someone who needed to be protected at my table. That was one of my favorite little side effects of the weekend. The people around me started to care about my people too.
Sunday was supposed to be quieter, with just CSUNS and me planning to play a bounty tournament at Mohegan Sun while everyone else headed home. But poker has a way of pulling people back in. Jules decided to stay for cash. Sara changed her mind and jumped into a game too. When her name got called, a couple of tables actually cheered. Maybe they were excited to have her there. Maybe they thought the biggest fish in the room had arrived. Either way, it was hilarious.
Then a message popped up in the group chat: “CSUNS, look to your left.” It was from Axe. She had jumped into the tournament too. Anne was off playing slots for the moment but came by on our break. Suddenly, the gang was all there again.
I did not fare especially well that day, busting the tournament and losing in cash, but I still met some genuinely nice people along the way. After dinner and a show, I rescued Sara from the poker room, and we ended the night back at the Airbnb with CSUNS teaching me a couple of new card games.
That, in a nutshell, is what the weekend felt like.
Yes, there was poker. Yes, there were wins and losses. But more than anything, there was fresh energy, real connection, and the simple joy of watching online friendships turn into real ones. It was one of those weekends that reminds you that poker is not just about the hands you play. It is about the people you meet, the stories you collect, and the feeling of being exactly where you are supposed to be.
Conclusion
It would be easy to summarize the Connecticut trip through results alone: a ladies tournament cash, more tournament success from friends, long nights of mixed games, and a weekend full of poker variants from start to finish. But that would miss the point.
What made the trip memorable was not simply that we played. It was that each person arrived with a different relationship to poker, and somewhere over the course of the weekend, those stories began to overlap. For one person, poker had become a way to build a community for beginners. For another, it was a path back to herself in a new stage of life. For another, it was proof that the game can offer far more than money. And for all of us, it became a reason to gather, laugh, learn, compete, and connect.
Somewhere between the tournaments, the cash games, the Airbnb conversations, the coaching, the cheering, and the home games that ran deep into the night, the trip became a reminder that poker can offer much more than a shot at profit. It can create confidence. It can spark friendship. It can turn usernames into real people and shared interests into real belonging.
That may be the real win.
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