"The Road goes ever on and on,
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with weary feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say."

—September 23, 2024|3018

[d0: I Bagged my essential belongings at the End, where I set off on the Beginning of my own personal Tolkienian quest.]

_-*

dIM_Quest: Depart from the Shire, venture southeastward through M-E, deep into Mordor, to climb Mt. Doom & slip through its Cracks, to return this glitchy Ring.
=
Depart (with 555 murica coins) from the micro-low stakes, venture higher through the stakes, deep into high stakes, to climb Mt. Money & slip through its Cracks, to:
- Starve the "Vices"
- Resist corruption (by bearing the Ring, by playing the Game of Poker (that revolves around money))
+ Nourish the "Virtues"
+ Stay true (by bearing the Ring, by playing the Game of Poker (that revolves around money), but still stick to my Path guided by Gil-Estel)

(Why LOTR? I think narrative is powerful & the one from LOTR fits how I envisage my Poker (& Life as a whole) journey.)
(What's Gil-Estel? Eärendil, half-elven, ascended into the sky on Vingilot, carrying (the light of) a Silmaril, becoming a symbol of hope, hence Gil-Estel: the Star of High Hope.)

Some of the things G-E represents for me:
* The dedication to the technical craft of Poker
* The dedication to continuously striving to be a better person: mentally & physically
* The quality/brightness of "the aspired values" against the backdrop of darkness
* ...

Poker presents a treacherous terrain that challenges all of the above.
It's only in the harshest of environments where you can truly test your mettle.
E.g: True grace, a Virtue, can only be proven during dramatically tough losses
So, putting yourself in such situations is required to validate true grace
And, reframing those losses as opportunities to display/nourish grace is key to unlock it
-----
Slowly, my routingV1 will be laid out, but I wanted to set the scene properly first for what's to come, contextualize it a bit.