Hi @Sledge0001 I'm interested in doing something similar using a raspiblitz node (https://github.com/rootzoll/raspiblitz) and an Antminer S9k currently mining with ckpool (https://solo.ckpool.org/), however, everything @kano says makes sense.

Decentralization and trustlessness are wanted in the bitcoin BTC community. Considering that ckpool have the infrastructure with these nodes connected to big pools it is possible to solo-self-miners to connect directly and fast with ckpool to improve the odds? I really want to use my old s9k with the local full node and do the lotto mining but most importantly learn about the experience.

I'm a volunteer if you help me to achieve this, we can try to measure latency between nodes or find a list of the biggest pools and nodes and do nice research for the community. I don't think that I'm the only one interested in achieving this. What do you think?