Gary Li — Off-duty, still leveling.
The save screen between the work quests. Where I trade roadmaps for rulebooks, dashboards for rallies, and conference rooms for the steam off a fresh pour. Same brain, different inventory.
When I say I'm invested in BTC, I don't mean Bitcoin. I mean my personal trio — Board games, Tennis, Coffee. They keep me curious, balanced, and constantly leveling up outside of work.
The Strategist's Stack
Asymmetric war games, co-op engine builders, anything with hidden information. Where I practice trade-offs, sunk-cost discipline, and reading the table.
The Grind Portfolio
Almost every day after work. Tracking swing counts and rally length the way I track ecomm metrics — marginal gains, logged.
The Daily Compound
One cup per morning. Dialing in grind, dose, and yield with a kitchen scale and zero shame. Patience exercise disguised as a beverage.
Lost Ruins of Arnak : Twisted Paths
Board Games
Systems & Strategy
Collected 20+ strategy titles that reward long-term thinking and adaptability. In college, I designed and prototyped my own digital board game with a full rulebook, tokens, and cards.
- MAINLost Ruins of Arnak — deck-building, resource management
- SUBCatan — Strategy, trading
- LIGHTSplendor Duel — for sneaking in newcomers
COURT · AFTER WORK
Tennis
Iterative Improvement
Every match is a dataset. I track my tennis sessions the same way I track e-commerce metrics — analyzing patterns, looking for marginal gains, because improvement is a game of consistency.
- WPNWilson Clash 100 v2
- FOCUSBackhand
- RIVALMy own forehand consistency
BREW · DAILY 6:45 AM
Coffee
Precision & Ritual
From dialing in the perfect brew to practicing latte art, coffee is my daily blend of standardization and experimentation. Each cup is a tiny experiment in patience and precision.
- DEVICEBreville Barista Express
- BEANOlympia Morning Sun
- SKILLWorking on the Matcha creamtop
Little wins, little losses, the moments worth a screenshot. Pinned from the journal.
WINArnak clicked today.
Finally sequenced the deck right — held back on research, flooded temples late. Resource management over raw points. It worked.
PRFirst clean kick serve.
Three months of trying. The ball bounced where I aimed for the first time. Felt like shipping a feature.
WILDBroke the SOP today.
Shot pulled straight over cold milk. No steam, no ritual — just contrast. Weird. Worked. Reminder that the standard process isn't always the ceiling.
NEWNew bean dialed in.
18g in, 36g out, 28s. Deep, syrupy, chocolate. None of the fruit I expected from the bag. Better.
The hobbies aren't separate from the work — they're where the work gets sharpened. Here's what carries over.
Every game teaches me that the obvious move is rarely the best one. Sit with the board for a turn longer than feels comfortable.
Nobody fixes their backhand in one session. You log it, you iterate, you trust the rep count. Same with shipping product.
A good cup is a tight SOP — grind, dose, yield, time. Documentation isn't paperwork, it's the recipe that makes tomorrow's pour repeatable.
If we ever play a board game, share a court, or have a coffee — that's where you'll really meet me.