Maintaining and Building Friendships in Poker

Poker may be a solo grind, but that doesn’t mean your life has to be. In this week’s feature, ACR Pro Chris Moorman takes a heartfelt detour from standard strategy talk to open up about something every long-term grinder faces: staying connected. In this article, Chris shares personal lessons from 20 years on the road—how to protect your relationships, avoid burnout, and keep your circle strong in a lifestyle built on travel, variance, and solitude.

For this article I wanted to talk about a topic which is very different from the usual poker article you might read. I’ve been in poker for almost 20 years now and one of the hardest things I’ve found with being a professional poker player is to maintain friendships.
Over the years I’ve lived in a lot of different places including Cyprus, New Zealand, Australia and now America. One thing all of these places have in common is being a long way from home in the UK so it’s impossible for me to see everyone I’d like to as much as possible; it’s just not logistically feasible.

I think it’s really important to keep in contact with people because let’s face it, life as a professional poker player can be a lonely existence at times and is a very self-serving career. For example grinding online through the night (depending on your timezone) or having a long travel day alone to play a live tournament in a different continent. Whilst this is part of the job and something you have to embrace if you are looking to put in the volume required to be a successful poker player it’s much nicer if you have company along the way and it’s important you don’t get stuck in your own bubble. This is definitely something I really struggled with in my 20s when I was new to the game and at times it was almost my sole purpose in life to get good at the game. This inevitably led to poor life balance and me isolating myself a bit from friends and family. Surrounding yourself with a good group of people will no doubt also help your mental state and have a positive knock on effect on your poker game. To have a long and successful tournament poker career I think it’s important that you are happy away from the table because given the nature of tournament poker there is often a long time in between positive results. If you are always searching for poker to be making you happy then you will struggle being a professional tournament poker player.

When I go back and visit the UK I try to make plans in advance. Whether it be a meet up in London one night with my university friends or taking my family out on a day trip somewhere. This carries over to when I know I’ll be seeing a friend at a poker tournament I’ve decided to go to. In this case I’ll make sure to organize a dinner or meet them at the gym to work out together before playing poker. There is no substitute for spending quality time together in a friendship so it’s important to make the effort when you can. Maintaining and building a friendship doesn’t always have to happen in person though….

Our phones are such a big piece of our life these days and in theory they should make it much easier to keep up with people especially when talking about friends in other countries but often we use them as an excuse to be lazy. For example writing a comment on your friend’s instagram post about getting a new job instead of just calling them for 5 minutes or shooting them a message asking what it actually involves and how everything is going? Another negative thing about phones is a lot of the time they can stop us from being present when we hang out with our friends. I think it’s important to mute group conversations when spending time with people. An hour of quality time goes a lot further than one where you are distracted by a device or something else going on.

Financial dealing can also complicate relationships so I would avoid loaning money to people. It can be hard sometimes when you are doing well and someone asks but unless it’s their last resort I would avoid those situations as difficulties always tend to arise. Also avoid flaunting big wins or complaining excessively about losses around friends who may not share the same financial outlook. Instead I would recommend focusing on the aspects of your life that connect you together beyond money such as shared interests, experiences, or values.

Ultimately, poker may be an individual pursuit, but friendships add meaning, stability, and joy to the journey. With a little time and effort, you can build a life where both the game and your relationships will flourish.

Chris Moorman

The native of Britain joined the ACR Poker Team in November 2021, along with his wife Katie Lindsay. Together, they’re the first husband & wife duo to serve as Team Pros for a leading poker site.