Calistri's Corner

Well I safely arrived in Vegas on Monday and was swiftly scooped up by wildbill and the Poker Shrink at the airport.  While I did have to get into Vegas a couple of days early for pre-WSOP meetings, another motivating force was to get a little poker out of my system.

One of the challenges of covering the WSOP is watching great poker happen all around you and having almost no time to play yourself.  In 2005, the only time my hands touched cards was during the WSOP Media Event (where I bubbled, while Pauly cashed).  In 2006, it was a little better.  I got to play the blogger tournament and snuck in a few incredibly silly blogger mixed cash games (made even more fun by being able to tilt Wil Wheaton).  I’m not sure, as I post here today, what my schedule will end up looking like for the 2007 WSOP - so it was my intent to shove as much poker as possible into my few pre-WSOP days.

Monday night brought us to the Orleans NLHE rebuy event.  I won’t say I played badly - but it would have been hard to know if I had played at all.  I was card dead throughout and it’s a fools errand to make a move on the table with 10-6 offsuit when half the table is willing to rebuy at the drop of a flop.  Tuesday we decided to try our luck at the Binion’s 2:00pm.  While most of the pokerboyz (my rag tag team of poker road buddies) had scored at least one final table at Binion’s, I had never had the honor.  Granted, I’ve only played two events there; I bubbled in the Ladies UPC event and was dead money in another daily event.

After the first break both wildbill and the Shrink had almost doubled their stacks.  I, of course, had inched along to be just at about average.  Sometime during the second hour I saw wildbill get up from the table.  I just had assumed that he was so far above average that he was sneaking a pre-break smoke - that is until he turned around and gave me the thumbs down.  Not long after, I saw the Poker Shrink doing the all-in standing lean over the table and walk away.  By that point I had lost a good chunk of my average stack and told the boyz I’d be joining them shortly.

I called an all-in with AQ - only to be facing an AQ.  We chopped the pot.  On the next hand, I pushed all-in from the small blind with K-T, facing the BB’s Q-J.  The board came A-2-3-4-5 for another fringgin’ chopped pot!  The table started calling me “the chopper.”  I was able to steal one or two after that; apparently the table was crippled by my chopping threat.  Time passed and I made it to the final table with my predictably short stack and where they would pay six.
                  
Wildbill and the Shrink soon joined me, bringing me a Debonair (Malibu rum and pineapple juice).  The Debonair is the pokerboyz’ traditional spoils for a final table visit.  I doubled up a couple of time and hung on.  My last hand I re-raised all-in with AQs to match up against presto.  The flop cam J-4-T with two spades.  The turn was the 5s, giving me the nut flush but giving my opponent outs to the boat.  The river paired the board and I was out in 6th.  But I busted my Binion’s cherry and all was right with the world. 

After sushi at Green Valley, we came back to the house and wildbill soundly trounced us at Chinese.  For the next few days while wildbill is in town, the Chinese war will rage on.  Stay tuned for bragging rights.   

  

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 30th, 2007 at 5:22 pm and is filed under Uncategorized.