Jennifer welcomes high stakes cash game player and Poker for Good and Murals for Good founder May Siu to the GRID to discuss one of the most coveted- and detested hands: pocket jacks. May was playing a big pot in a New York City cash game against one of her regular foes, “General Bang Bang.” Holding jacks in a 5-10-25 (straddle) game, she called Bang Bang’s under the gun open, and went four ways to an 8h-7s-2c rainbow flop. Playing 6K deep, Bang Bang bet big and fast on flop, turn (4h) and river (9s) to get all his money in by the river, putting May in the tank. This dramatic hand ended up being the last live poker hand they played in a year, as the pandemic surged and sent May and her trusted poker circle to online ZOOM games.

May also talks about a less pleasant experience in NYC games: a cheating scandal, in which five players infiltrated their home game, using marked cards that could only be detected with a black light. She explains how she helped eventually sniff them out and gives advice on how to rid your games of cheating.

Jennifer and May then go on to discuss May’s organization pokerforgood.org, and how she got so heavily involved in philanthropic initiatives from her work to spread #StopAsianHate awareness, to teaching child cancer survivors poker.

May is currently running a campaign muralsforgood.org to connect communities with mural art to #StopAPPIHate. Check out the website and gofundme here.  

She is also running poker tournament fundraisers on 5/4 for AAPI NYC Comptroller Candidate Reshema Patel, as well as a fundraiser in conjunction with the Children Brain Tumor Foundation on 5/23.

Stay posted with May and learn how to get involved on muralsforgood.org and pokerforgood.org.

Now that May Siu has taken pocket jacks, there are 114 hands left on thepokergrid.com. You can now find previous episodes using our new Episode Finder.