Let's Start the Year On Tilt
2025 will be a year of emotional confusion and frustration which rewards a suboptimal strategy, best played in an overly aggressive style
Hello Poker Friends,
It’s 2025 and we’re playing poker next Tuesday. This is the first Shareholder Poker game of the year and I think the randomness and real world stakes of poker is a perfect totem for kicking off 2025.
I’m going to enter the year, and next week’s game, with the confidence of Warren Beatty in Kaleidoscope (1966) where he has put in the time and effort to rig the game and then enter a high stakes game of international drug barons!
It’s important to do something symbolic to start the year off on the right foot. One year, to manifest abundance, I waited to have my first cup of coffee until I could buy the most expensive cup I could find. Another year I wanted to “start fresh” so I sold all my investments in December and then spent January re-investing the money.
This year we can start off the year with a poker game, which is a community of friends, a celebration of money, a risky endeavor, and a fierce competition. I predict that 2025 will be a year “on tilt.” We’re kicking it off with the east coast freezing, the west coast burning, and all kinds of political turmoil around the world as we consider invading Greenland (we’re all assuming that is a bluff right?).
If the world is “on tilt” this year, then we might as well embrace that and playing poker is the perfect symbolic act.
“In a crazy world, it's only your insanity that will keep you sane.”
-Leo Buscaglia
So block out the following time in your calendar because this is important:
Event Details:
📆 Tuesday, January 14th
🕖 Time: 7:00 PM PT
🃏 Zoom and Game Details To Follow
💰 $50 buy-in (send via Venmo to @kmikeym)
A Few Important Updates
Matt Wolff is the new holder of the Hope Coin. He earned it after eliminating the previous holder 3 times. This resets the score for everyone. The first one to eliminate Matt three times will win possession of our most coveted award.
We’re moving to an “ALL VENMO” payment system. If you don’t have Venmo, please get it and set it up. It’s easy.
The Other Special Rules
Mean Girls: Players on the official Zoom call during the game may collude against players who are not on the official Zoom call during the game, provided that the absence is not a temporary one due to technical issues.
The 2-7 Bonus: If you make it to a showdown with 2-7 you get a free share! But it only counts when there are five or more people at the table. (so if we are split up at the beginning, you might be out of luck until the tables merge). Be sure to announce this as it can happen quick and someone else needs to witness it. If you win in a show down with 2-7 you get three shares.
The Final Countdown: If seven deuce is played as the final hand of the tournament the player will be given two shares, and if a player wins the tournament with seven deuce they will receive seven shares.
Cain + Abel: If Mike’s brother Gene is playing there is a bonus of two share to whoever knocks him out.
🤑 Payouts
If the prize pool is over $500 we pay out 3 spots and if the prize pool is under $500 we pay out 2 spots.
3 Spots:
🥇 50%
🥈 30%
🥉 20%
2 Spots:
🥇 70%
🥈 30%
my prediction for 2025 is that it's going to be "on tilt," a term used in poker for emotional confusion and frustration which results in a suboptimal strategy, often played in an overly aggressive style.