Yesterday the summer associates joined the Real Estate and Business Finance & Restructuring practice groups at the Coral Reef Yacht Club for an exciting night filled with food, drinks, and most importantly poker. For many of us it was the first time playing poker but thanks to a quick tutorial at the Coral Reef Yacht Club and Poker for Dummies, Elise, Jenny and I were able to catch up to speed–sort of.

The night went by very quickly, everything was fast paced as the master dealer kept us all on track to have a winner sooner rather than later. As an additional incentive, partners had a “bounty” on their heads, an AMEX gift card was given to any summer or associate who was able to eliminate a partner from the table, which made everything that much more exciting. Elise and I were at the same table and I have to say we held our own for a pretty long time… although we still don’t know if we actually have good poker faces or we were just so clueless it worked to our advantage.

As players were eliminated, the best players from each table gathered at one table for the final round. A crowd of spectators gathered and many of us thought previous tournament champ Jared Spector was going to blow everyone out of the water for the second time. Not this time… we were all watching intently as Lauren slowly eliminated everyone and became the first woman to win the poker tournament. Lauren went home with multiple AMEX giftcards and an iPad mini, she was stoked and mentioned this had been her favorite event by far.

It was an exciting night and all of us learned a lot, including to take it with a grain of salt when Lauren says she’s “rusty”.. must’ve been her good poker face!

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