Calistri's Corner

Last year, in poker’s classroom, I did my best Spicoli impression.  Oh, I played a lot of poker. But unlike other years, I didn’t work on my game. This year, I am going to have to spend a lot of time with Mr. Hand.  Â

Â

I am lucky that the poker boyz have waltzed in again to save me from my own complacency.   Just before Tunica, wildbill emailed a hand for group discussion.  After Tunica, he threw another one into the email mix. Idoru99 had a light bulb moment and suggested a monthly private boyz group event. So the plan is that once a month, the poker boyz will head over to Full Tilt for a private sit ‘n go. Afterward, hand histories will be discussed, debated, and otherwise tortured for salient poker knowledge. To me this kicks a normal study group up a notch.

Of course actually corralling all nine of us into a scheduled event may take Herculean cat herding skills. Poker Shrink is down under for the next week or so, covering the Aussie Millions. And zipman has a mystery surgery scheduled. We’re all pretty sure he’s going the Brian Zembic route (pictured toward the bottom of this post) but for far less than $100,000. It is a little confusing as zippy wins “best man boobs” kudos every year. We like you just the way you are, zipster.

Speaking of private events, I see that there is an upcoming WPBT Circuit event; read CJ’s rather pathetic appeal.  And I am crushed that I missed Al Can’t Hang’s new Riverchasers tournament which got over 100 players in its debut performance. Apparently Al and Mookie are going to join forces on another soon.

It’s difficult to think of Al and not think about the synergy between poker and porn; two vices thriving in the same gender/age demographic (which Al tastefully taps with aplomb). When investing was all the rage, I once contemplated starting an online poker site with only topless female avatars and a stock ticker running across the bottom of the screen. While I missed that opportunity, I still have benefited from the poker and porn mix; my number one search phrase on my Aimlessly blog is still “cheerleader crotch shot” after all

Since we’re on the topic, you should definitely check out flipchip’s photo essay of the AVN Adult Expo in Las Vegas. Oh and don’t miss these. The AVN Adult Expo triggered yet another poker and porn bridge for me. After I left the mothership, the online poker website I used to work for, three of its best programmers also defected.  Apparently heading to morally higher ground, they all ended up working for a company called Fleshlight.com; their principle product looks to be a handy vagina in a can. One of the programmers was bemoaning the fact that most of the Fleshlight team was heading out to Vegas for the show, but he and his programming buds couldn’t come up with a good enough excuse to tag along. He did mention that their latest hot product is something called Mr. Limpy. Can anyone help me out with what niche market this appeals to?

Hmmm. I have derailed here. I wonder if I had a point. Well I’ll continue on as if I had one. It’s easy marketing poker to you boyz. You just take a bikini clad, implanted, woman and stick an online poker logo on her. But what do you do if you’re trying to market online poker to women? It’s not so easy. Sure, you can find a few scantily clad Adonises. But don’t for one minute conclude that we might believe that these are the type of guys we’d attract if we played poker - or god forbid, that we might draw the conclusion that this is what our male online tablemates actually look like. Sorry guys - but we know what the average online player looks like. And sure sites have sponsored women players, but I’m guessin’ Vanessa, Erica, Clonie, and Evy weren’t employed to attract the likes of me.

Women still represent an untapped market for online poker. But I think sites may just have to think outside the porn box. I know. I know. Sacrilege.                                   Â

This entry was posted on Monday, January 15th, 2007 at 9:38 pm and is filed under Uncategorized.