Christine Korza is a Phoenix, Arizona NATIVE, born and raised right here in the North Valley! After graduating from Moon Valley High School in 1997, she spent a formative year and a half in Wyoming partying like the 18 year old she was and managing a Domino's Pizza franchise.

Come 1999, the tech market was booming and she (a techie at heart) realized that she was missing opportunities in Phoenix and moved back in the summer. She went from Technical Support at Charles Schwab, to a couple of web development gigs for the next several years. During that time, she caught the poker bug as Texas Hold'em was getting popular and started up a home game in 2005. It started off as family and friends (as these things do), and when referrals were resulting in 35+ players in her house every Friday night, she ended up making the game smaller and more private. Back then, it was a $20 freezeout tournament with a 6-month season. Every 6 months, the top 10 point leaders would play a double stack, double buy-in game for the crown. She had a rotating trophy for the weekly reigning champion to take home and bring back the next week to defend their title, and engraved permanent trophies for the top 3 point leaders.

Most of the success of the game was owing to Christine's honest nature, her integrity, and her dedication to the game of poker. She spent many hours online, participating in poker forums, and discussing and researching the rules and history of the game. Her knowledge of poker rules and why they exist makes her an expert on the game (at least from a management standpoint).

Christine had been looking to start a business pretty much from the day she was born, and one day she realized that she could use her poker knowledge to open a retail store and cater to others who host home games. She had always been frustrated by trying to find supplies online and not having anywhere to go on short notice. She also figured that opening a retail store would be a great launching point to a secondary poker-related enterprise of some sort, whether it turned out to be equipment rental, casino parties, a free bar league.... or a social club!

So one thing leads to another and next thing you know, Poker Nation becomes a social club for competitive poker players in June of 2008. The success of the club ended up swarming out her regular Friday night home game (which had moved to Poker Nation) and was eventually canceled.

Christine lives pretty close to Poker Nation in Moon Valley with her wonderful fiance, Charles, who is a rock star in the Systems Engineering world, her brother Alex, and 3 cats. She is the oldest of 10, which includes a sister, who is a nurse in the Emergency Room at St. Luke's Hospital, a brother who works at Poker Nation, 3 half sisters and 2 half brothers who are still school-aged, a stepsister who lives in Utah with her husband and son, and a stepbrother who is serving us in the Army in Afghanistan.

Christine loves pizza, burritos from Chipotle, and cheese. She hates pickles, brussels sprouts, and pretty much any sauce you'd put on a burger.

Now that you know Christine a little better, come down and play in her club! :) 

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