Jennifer Shahade welcomes Qiyu “Nemo” Zhou to the GRID. Nemo is a former World Youth Chess Champion, a streamer at twitch.tv/akanemsko and a professional e-sports player at Counter Logic Gaming. Since turning 21 in January, she has been sprinkling more and more poker into her main menu of chess and league of legends.  She even won a poker tournament soon after this pod was recorded.

The hand she brings to the GRID is King-Ten suited from her first live cash game, a high stakes (25/50) “Ladies Night” game sponsored by the World Poker Tour. Other players included poker champions and previous GRID guests Jamie Kerstetter and Kelly Minkin as well as streaming superstar and chess master Alexandra Botez. Nemo’s opponent in this hand was Maria Konnikova, the best-selling author the “Biggest Bluff” and the fitting holder of the 7-2 off spot on our GRID.  

In the critical hand, Ashley Sleeth opened in early position, and Nemo called on the button with King-Ten suited. Maria Konnikova three-bet from the small blind. Ashley and Nemo both called to see a flop of 983 rainbow with no hearts. The action checked around to a queen turn, when things start to get very interesting.

After dissecting the hand, Nemo and Jen discuss mental game and psychology, and how Nemo’s performance coach helped her win a Bullet Chess Championship on chess.com. They also talk about Josh Waitzkin’s book, The Art of Learning, favorite chess openings and why poker champion Xuan Liu reminded Nemo of Magnus Carlsen.  

Jennifer, who recently joined Poker Power’s advisory board asks Nemo about her advice on how to grow poker to more young women, as Poker Power moves toward their goal to teach one million women poker. They also discuss how to avoid the jealousy that can accompany high performance goals, and to embrace community and cooperation.

Follow Nemo on twitch, twitter and Instagram.  This is an historic episode of the GRID: our very first TWIN episode. Eagle eyed GRID fans may have remembered that Sam Greenwood also discussed King-Ten suited. And so just like last episode, we still have 111 hands left to cover on the GRID, which means, a little more show for you. Support the pod by retweeting/sharing episodes and subbing as well as rating and reviewing us on Apple/your favorite podcast feeds: it really helps and keeps us motivated!