Farcaster VIPs (Very Interesting People), Episode 3: Melissa Burr

I started this series with a goal to counter the false narrative that there are no interesting people on Farcaster. But today’s entry may count as a two-for-one, proving simultaneously that not only is the Purple App home to many Very Interesting People… but also, women!

“The trick is to always be learning faster than the curve.” 

Melissa Burr (@burrrrrberry) is Farcaster’s resident Jersey Girl, a former professional poker player who has brought her lifelong love of the green felt to the Purple App, with style. 

Travel with me through time back to 2001, where we find Burr completing a college degree in marketing and business operations. But being allergic to alcohol, she finds herself searching for less … typical college pastimes than her peers. 

And that’s how she ends up playing billiards down at the local pool hall, then finding out she has more than a bit of a knack for it. Before long, she was making decent money parting unwitting opponents from their playful wagers, and winning local tournaments. 

It was at this very same billiards club that she was also introduced to that other All-American, green-felted game… poker, as patrons would often gather in the back room for drunken Limit Hold’ Em shenanigans. 

As soon as she tried it, she was hooked. Especially because, in her own words, she could tell “there’s no way they were playing mathematically correct.”  

She studied the game, she studied the odds, and she found her edge. 

She then continued to play and improve all through college, and kept playing as often as she could, even after she graduated and joined the workforce. In 2007, when the economy took a turn for the worse and she was laid off from her job, she thought “you know what, fuck it, I’m just going to try and play poker for a living.” 

She began her Professional Poker career by learning all the many different types and variations of poker, and how to play each one correctly, and she practiced discipline and restraint at the tables to outwit and outplay card rooms full of (mostly) men all over the US of A. She also began to play at higher and higher stakes, and would make a name for herself as one of the greatest mixed game, high stakes poker players in the world. 

In 2014, she even became the first woman to ever cash in the World Series of Poker’s $50,000 Poker Players Championship, a high-buy-in event for elite players where the games would rotate between all the popular poker formats (No-Limit Hold'Em, Pot-Limit Omaha, 2–7 Triple Draw Lowball, Limit Hold'Em, Omaha 8, Razz, Seven-Card Stud and Stud 8.) She placed 7th in that event, banking an impressive $165K!

Despite being primarily a cash game specialist, she also finished in the money in several other WSOP tournaments during her time as a pro, raking in over $300k in career prize money. Meanwhile, she continued to terrorize cash games all over America for the better part of a decade, until in 2020, with the Pandemic put a stop to all that. 

With live poker officially “off the table”, Burr decided to put her marketing and business operations degree to work, and began taking business development work in the crypto industry. 

Fortunate for all of us that she fell down this particular rabbit hole post-poker, because that’s the path that would eventually bring her over to Farcaster, where she immediately realized that there were opportunities to build communities and for people to be rewarded in onchain-native ways for their contributions. 

Burr quickly saw that there was a lot of poker interest on the purple app, but not a whole lot of conversation about it, and definitely no opportunities for people to play together. 

Drawing inspiration from her past experience, she decided to start hosting free roll, just-for-fun, "vibes only" tournaments on the free Club GG app for her followers, and rewarding winners with $HAM, $DEGEN, $MOXIE and other Farcaster-native social currencies.

The Burr Frens Poker Club was born. 

Fast forward to today, and Burr is often running several free tournaments most weekdays, with hundreds of community members joining in from all over the world to learn, play and chat together.

She has also been running occasional “clinic games” where club members can join and receive live playing advice and critiques directly from a pro, as well as a weekly “Tournament of Champions” where anyone who won a tournament that week can enter the arena to attempt to be crowned the "Burr Poker Cub Champion" of the week, and a chance to take her on in a heads up battle. 

Burr was originally talking about poker when she said “the trick is to always be learning faster than the curve”, but I have been personally observing her community-building here on Farcaster over the past few weeks, and I think it’s clear that this is advice she takes to heart in all aspects of her life. 

Joining the Burr Poker Club is easy: Just follow her on Warpcast and watch for a game announcement, then ask politely for the code to join. She takes no buy in fee or rake, or any other payment for running all these tournaments, so if you do join in on the fun (and you should), be sure to tip her generously in your Farcaster tipping coin of choice, or maybe purchase some of her Moxie Fan Coin to pay it forward.

In my opinion (and in my firsthand experience) what Melissa is doing with her poker club is one of the most earnest and effective community-building efforts happening on Farcaster right now, and it is exactly what we need to see more of if we want the network to grow. She is a Very Interesting Person, bringing hundreds more very interesting people together daily for the love of the game.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading. And if you are enjoying this series, please drop a comment and share it with your network on Warpcast and X. Let's make it known together that there is no shortage of Very Interesting People on the Purple App!

Thank you also to poker legend Brad Wilson for hosting Melissa for an episode of his "Chasing Poker Greatness" podcast back in 2020, which I listened to in doing research for this profile.

Speaking of podcasts, Melissa is slated to be a guest in the upcoming Season 2 of ZEROPOD.xyz, our CC0 video podcast about Enjoying Ethereum. Subscribe on Spotify or YouTube so you don't miss it when it drops.