Calistri's Corner

My trip to Vegas was just about as perfect as it gets. Apparently my plane ride out with the under ten year old crowd was to be my only bad beat.  It started with the pokerboyz, had a little bizness in between, and was topped off with more bloggers than I’ve seen since the Winter Classic.  And I even ended up (a little). (more…)

Thankfully, the stewardess had great intuition; something I’ve noticed about Southwest Airlines. “Can I get you another,” she asked, although I was only halfway through my first drink. “Please,” I implored. (more…)

I know I said I was going to be home in Austin until the end of April. I lied - as here I sit with plane tickets to Vegas for tomorrow. I’m also sitting with a pile of papers and spreadsheets that consititute my taxes that need to be sent off to the accountant today. I finally have him trained to deal with the fact that I file a neteller statement in lieu of a W2. Of course next year may be another matter. (more…)

I know a lot of my peers were curious about the question I asked during the WSOP’s latest conference call. No. I did not ask about an overabundance of chips at last year’s event. I asked about chocolate. But what I really wanted to ask about was Viagra. (more…)

The poker media has grown - but you can hardly make the argument that it has matured.  At this point, junior high school girls have more on the poker media, as evidenced by the latest media spat. Somehow I doubt that Time and Newsweek chose public name calling as their competitive weapon of choice.  (more…)

My good buddy BJ Nemeth is in town this week and we’re spending time doing what we love best - talking about poker. I know the classic American cultural question is “Where were you when JFK was shot?” But in the poker world, there was probably no more important moment as when Chris Moneymaker parlayed 40 bucks into a WSOP Cinderella dream.

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I’ve been woefully behind on my blog reading and have been trying to play catch up lately. So put me in the slow group for not posting my official good-bye to Card Squad. I was sorry to see the old girl go down as I have been a reader going back to their pplayer days. (more…)

I have no official traveling gigs until April and I was looking forward to some down time in Austin. This is usually a great time of year here; the temperature hovers in the 70’s, the SXSW music festival kicks into full gear, and the wildflowers are starting to emerge.  But this week brought me some personal losses that will make this spring tougher to navigate, even from Austin. (more…)

I’ve covered a number of tournaments in my life, but none of them working side-by-side with the PokerNews team. What a difference good, talented, fun loving, company makes. All the other media teams looked like they were draggin’ their asses, but Pauly, Change100, the Poker Shrink, and I are rockin’.  Busting my California card room cherry with this crew was a good call. (more…)