Labors of Love: Arlie Shaban Delivers His Message
Arlie Shaban had never heard of the 12 labors of Hercules.
For those in the same boat, here's a rundown. Half god and half man after being born of one of Zeus' many infidelities, Hercules was the target of much hate from Zeus' wife, Hera. When Hercules was grown and married with children, Hera struck him with a fit of madness that resulted in Hercules murdering his own family.
Crushed in the aftermath when the spell wore off, Hercules eventually accepted 10 labors — that later became 12 — from King Eurystheus. In return, Hercules would be purified and attain immortality.
"Playing a $25K doesn't even register in my brain as something that's even in the realm of possibility."
The epic tale is one of the oldest and most famous in human history, and Shaban has familiarized himself with it after the gods of his own story — OK, just leading online poker operator PokerStars — handed him a challenge of 12 labors of his own.
Laboring Toward $30,000
Now, as far as anyone knows, he didn't murder any wives or children. And no jealous gods are driving him mad in an attempt to lash out at their erstwhile husbands.
Instead, the madness comes from within for Shaban. After all, this is a man who once streamed 1,000 hours over 125 consecutive days on his Twitch channel, ending it with a 43-hour marathon.
So, he accepted the 12 challenges with no expectation of any sort of reward. It's just the latest puzzle for a guy whose love of games has seen him tackle Big Brother Canada — he finished eighth in season two — before diving into poker and making his name as an iron man who grinds like few others.
"My first reaction was, 'bring it on,'" he said. "I love PokerStars and also love a good challenge so I got extremely excited.
"I play mostly $33 games and below. My biggest cash is $4,000 for winning a $16 tournament with 2,500 people."
"I wasn't familiar with the 12 labors of Hercules at all before this, but lets just say now I know them all inside out and backwards. I think it's such a cool concept for my challenges to mimic the 12 labour of Hercules. It's fun trying to figure out each new challenge because they are revealed out of nowhere on my stream in some form of a riddle to figure out."
After all, playing poker, building his community and tackling 12 labors thrown at him by PokerStars beats the hell out of grinding out a mindless hourly at Enterprise Rent-A-Car, which is what Shaban was doing before he went all in on poker. He says he was "plotting his escape" the whole time, and now the light at the tunnel's end has gotten a whole lot bigger and brighter.
That's because, three labors into his 12 tasks, Shaban received word that if he finished by year's end, he'll receive a $30,000 Platinum Pass to try his luck at the $25,000 PokerStars Players No-Limit Hold'em Championship in The Bahamas.
His incredulous reaction on stream speaks for itself, but he had more to say to PokerNews.
"Playing a $25K doesn't even register in my brain as something that's even in the realm of possibility," he said. "I'm at the very beginning of my career, meaning I play mostly $33 games and below. My biggest cash is $4,000 for winning a $16 tournament with 2,500 people.
"I can't really process the fact I'm playing for a Platinum Pass yet. I just found out yesterday and it doesn't even seem real. But with that being said, I'm ready to win a seat to that $25K and go on the run of a lifetime."
Daniel Negreanu, who revealed the news to Shaban, enjoyed Shaban's shock.
"His reaction to the news that he was getting a Platinum Pass was brilliant, so I can’t wait to see his reaction if he manages to pull these labors off," Negreanu said. "You can do it, Arlie!"
First, there's work to be done.
The Labors, Poker-Style
Once given his first challenge, Shaban set out on his initial mission: "skin the Dutch lion."
While Hercules had to strangle a lion with impenetrable fur for armor, Shaban had to figure out a way to topple none other than fellow streamer extraordinaire Lex Velduis. The challenge specified that Shaban had to face him alone, so the two engaged in a heads-up match.
Things didn't go well at first, but Shaban eventually prevailed.
"Facing Lex was super cool for me," he said. "I've looked up to Lex for such a long time, he's the big dog out here in the Twitch poker streets these days, so to have the opportunity to face him heads up as challenge number one was extremely exhilarating. We had a lot of fun during the stream, he raided my channel after with all his viewers and it was really just a fun, awesome atmosphere at my channel that day."
Next? Hercules slew the Lernaean hydra, a nine-headed poisonous monster that regrew two heads every time one was chopped off. As for Shaban, he'd have to slay the multi-table beast, rather than the multi-headed one.
Shaban eventually worked out that another heads-up match was in order against famed high-volume grinder Randy "nanonoko" Lew. This time, the two went to war across nine tables. However, every time Shaban emerged victorious at a table, two more matches would pop up.
"Absolute insanity," Shaban described it. "Overwhelming is an understatement. We got to the point where we were 17-tabling heads up against each other. In a regular on-stream session, I'll play 8-10 full-ring tables at a time (a bit more off-stream), but to have 17 heads-up games simultaneously was almost too much to handle."
In the trials of Hercules, he was forced to enlist help for this one. He had trusted sidekick Iolaus light the stumps of the necks on fire after the heads were cut off to stop the regeneration.
Shaban likewise needed his trusty Twitch fans to come to his rescue. Once he gave them the password to the heads-up tables, they overwhelmed Lew with sheer numbers until his computer crashed.
"This was such a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I never dreamed would happen to me."
Seeing Hercules could kill any monster set in his path, he was given a different sort of task for the third labor, as Eurystheus assigned him to capture the Ceryneian hind. Rather than needing to wrangle a fleet deer, Shaban was assigned to capture the Canadian GOAT.
Hercules had to chase an animal for a year, a grueling task, to be sure. Shaban had it considerably better as he wound up getting a poker lesson from none other than all-time tournament money leader Negreanu of PokerStars Team Pro.
Negreanu — joined by Jason Somerville — imparted his poker wisdom on Shaban, reviewing a number of hands the young grinder played and opening his mind to different thought processes that would optimize his play.
"Too cool to put into words," Shaban said. "This was such a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I never dreamed would happen to me. I learned so much about my game, Daniel picked out so many leaks and the one thing i picked up on more than anything was just how highly intelligent Daniel was. The way his brain works and processes information is on a whole different level."
As for "Kid Poker," he enjoyed the experience as well.
"It was super fun to join Arlie on his third labor," Negreanu said. "I’m glad I could be a part of it and also help him kick-start his fourth labor. His enthusiasm for the game is unparalleled and you can't help but have it rub off on you.
"It’ll be interesting to see what will head his way as there’s some intriguing labors in the original 12 Labors of Hercules. I think with most people, the issue would be devoting the time necessary to complete the challenges, but honestly, from what I know of Arlie that isn't an issue for him."
Challenge No. 4
Indeed, Negreanu nudged him toward his fourth labor: "tell the world about your deeds."
Where Hercules had captured another great beast, the Erymanthian boar, PokerStars saw a hero making a statement. And they challenged Shaban to make a statement of his own by spreading the word about his ongoing labors.
"Definitely not tired, I'm pumped up and eager to see what's next."
That's where PokerNews came in, hooking up with Shaban for the interview that led to this piece.
A labor by definition involves work, but to Shaban, this has been anything but. Renting out cars for a pittance it is not, and he's anything but tired four labors in, especially now that he knows what awaits.
"I'm over the moon excited and ready to go," he said. "This has been overwhelming but I'm definitely enjoying it. Definitely not tired; I'm pumped up and eager to see what's next. I am ready to tackle any challenge that is thrown at me — you don't get many chances at a $30K Platinum Pass, so I'm going to make sure I give this everything I have."
Shaban's long hours of grinding has resulted in his channel growing to nearly 16,000 followers. They've been loving each step of this wild journey.
"My community has been losing their minds about this almost as much as I have," he said. "They think it's incredible all of the work the legends at PokerStars have put into these challenges.
"My community loves Lex so they went nuts for that challenge. A bunch of people got to play against Nano which was very fun for the viewers, and the Daniel/Jason stream was educational and also just so different to watch. Let's just say, Twitch is dying for more!"
To complete the fourth challenge, Shaban needs to get his message out to the masses. PokerNews opened the mic for him, and here's what he had to say:
"PokerStars has just given me the opportunity of a lifetime to win a $30K Platinum Pass by completing 12 random challenges entitled the 12 labors of Arlie. Come check out my Twitch channel at Arlie.tv and follow along on this crazy adventure I'm going on. I need to finish these challenges by the December so it's going to be an action-packed rest of the year."
He also made an appearance on the PokerNews Podcast, which you can check out here. Challenge complete, and it's on to the fifth labor. Hercules had to reroute a pair of rivers to clean out the muck in the stables of King Augeas' livestock.
Hopefully for Shaban, he doesn't have to wade through any animal waste or shift earthly terrain. Even if he does though, he'll tackle the task with his trademark enthusiasm and 16,000 loyal helpers at his side. Immortality may not await, but a Platinum Pass will do.
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