Jim Reid is a longtime lover of poker, a member of the PokerOrg Player Advisory Board, and host of the popular RecPoker podcast.
Hello dear reader, my name is Jim Reid and if you haven’t heard, I have the best freakin’ job in the world: every week I get to host the RecPoker Podcast! The ‘Rec’ stands for recreational, and that means I have a day job: I don’t play poker for a living, I’m not a pro.
No, I play poker for the love of the game, I play poker for FUN. But I’m sure you’ll agree, it’s more fun when you win, so like a lot of serious recreational players around the world, I study, I coach, I take the game seriously, and I want to win ALL the chips every time I sit down at the felt.
One of the things I enjoy most about hosting the show is meeting and getting to know our guests every week, and recently we spoke with Dan Lowery and Mikha Richards.
The power of community
We all benefit from the help of those around us. Nobody wins alone, and as I heard recently ‘when one person teaches, two people learn’. So in a very real way, we also benefit ourselves when we help other people - I think this is true for life generally, but particularly in the poker world.
Our two guests this week may have taken very different paths to their poker success, but they share the same big hearts, the same kind intentions, and the same love of poker. Their tales may be different but the moral of their stories is the same, and they both speak to the importance of community in the poker world.
Dan Lowery on the darker side of grinding
Recently we had WSOP circuit grinder and Rungood Poker Series regular Dan Lowery on the podcast. Dan’s enjoyed incredible success on the live circuit and he took us right behind the curtain into the gritty, hardscrabble life of a successful traveling player.
With intimate details about his own expectations for success, his actual win rate and his expenses, Dan’s first-hand accounts of the live grinder’s life is fascinating in the way it exposes the trials and pitfalls that await undisciplined and unsuspecting newcomers. We're talking about those newly-minted poker fans hoping to ‘go pro’ and make their mark, fueled by hope, guided by the stars of unrealistic dreams, and armored only by their own rose-tinted glasses.
But as we know, a lone wolf can only make it so far, and while Dan has consistently excelled over the years battling in this arena, he has made and relied on a lot of friends while doing it. Here’s our chat with Dan in full:
Mikha Richards shines a light for new players
For others, like recent guest Mikha Richards, pivoting to a professional poker playing career has been less about the grind of traveling and more about ‘finding a crew’. We spoke to Mikha about creating relationships within the poker community as a whole, and working to mentor newer players who are still finding their way in the game.
As a Team 100K Pro and working with women’s groups like Pocket Queens, Mikha uses her position in the poker world to highlight and champion the positive yet intangible benefits of being part of a worldwide community of poker fans.
From talking strategy with peers and mentors, consolation after a brutal loss or a bad beat, celebrating big wins with each other, to just hanging out and enjoying the roller-coaster ride together, Mikha is a champion of the social benefits of being a part of a poker community. Check out the episode here:
The common moral of their stories
Poker can be a lonely place, and there can only be one winner for every tournament we play, so it’s natural to think of poker champions as lone wolves, grinding away in the darkness of the lab.
But if you want to be the top dog at the tables, the fact is you need to be a part of a pack. Whether that’s the Rungood regulars, the Team 100K Pros, or the RecPoker Community, you go farther and faster when you have friends by your side and at your back.
Our community has a lot of stories in it - and our stories have a lot of characters! We’ll capture and examine some of them together here in this column from time to time. If there’s someone or something that you think would be an interesting subject to discuss here, please email me anytime and let me know.
I hope you stick around and tune in from week to week, dear reader, and explore this space with me!
Many thanks to many friends: nobody wins alone.
