Hello,
Last night I was a bit distracted while playing poker. I’m still in Canada and the US Open just started. Kathryn’s parents are big tennis fans and as a recent convert to the sport it’s even more fun to watch now. Plus I love watching a sport with others who are super excited. Kathryn’s dad basically gives us a “director’s commentary” of each match and while Kathryn’s mom occasionally finds it annoying I like it. So yeah, the tennis was a distraction, but I’m not trying to make excuses for my game last night, I’m just setting the scene. If you want more scene setting you might enjoy 3 Minute Review, a short podcast documenting my travels.
📧 A New Email Client!
So I moved the poker list over to substack. I should write this all up in a blog post but the short version is that Campaign Monitor is too corporate, Buttondown is too indie, and Substack, for now, is just right. They are also VC backed so I expect at some point they will ruin it because nothing good comes from venture capital1 .
I spent some time today making this email look nice. The header is inspired by Money Stuff by Matt Levine, still the best mailing list in the world.
🏆 The Results
So while this email is mostly a chance to kick the tires on the new mailing list I also wanted to share the results from last night. We had eight players and an amazing ten rebuys, resulting in some big moves on the leaderboard2.
Congrats to Nick, Andrew, and Chris for their wins last night!
Standings
Beau (612)
Nick (516)
Josh (398)
Andrew (292)
Drew (276)
Mike3 (168)
Chris (132)
Kevin (130)
Marcus (120)
Kyle (96)
Tatiana (60)
💭 Final Thoughts
Let me know if anything seems weird or off about this email. Formatting, or if you notice anything on the substack page or whatever… I’ll incorporate any changes into next week’s update on Tuesday.
Oh, and sorry for the delay in payouts. That will probably continue until I’m back home.
Grand Marshal of Shareholder Poker,
-K. Mike Merrill
I do think it would be fun to be a venture capitalist. And someday I hope one of my projects grows into something where I’m asking VCs for money again. But yeah, VC money is bad. It’s complicated.
Each Tuesday night $20 tournament pays out 1st, 2nd, 3rd and the total winnings are added to an ongoing score for a “season” which is three months of playing. Every three months we play a $50 finale and then a winner is chosen for the season. The winner receives the The Hope Coin, shipped from the previous season winner, handed down through the generations of winners and bestowing the power of hope on their cards, as well as some other seasonal prize.
It’s me!