One surprisingly frequent question I get asked as a coach usually comes from younger poker players. These players are generally at an age when they’re less confident and secure in their own life choices, and more preoccupied with what others might think of them. The question at hand is fairly simple – “how do I talk to my friends and family about poker?”

Unfortunately, this question is usually brought about by the existence of a wide variety of entirely inaccurate preconceptions that many people outside poker have about the game. However, it’s in our best interests as poker players not to fight these preconceptions too hard – the fact that recreational players don’t understand poker on a deep level is what makes it profitable.

However, that doesn’t change the fact that many players find it difficult to talk about the game with their friends, families or significant others, and this has a negative impact on their overall enjoyment of the game and their ability to fulfil their poker potential. If you’re one of these people, here are a few ways to overcome these obstacles.

Understand your audience

As with any unusual or potentially sensitive topic of conversation, understanding your audience is crucial to effective communication. Different types of people will have vastly different preconceptions about poker – what it is, what it involves, and what being a poker player says about you as a person.

One of the most obvious examples is that the older someone is the more likely they are to have a skeptical, conservative attitude towards poker – they will have likely grown up in an era when poker was largely absent from the media, and the ‘gangster’ portrayals of poker in Hollywood movies will be all they have to go on. These factors will be exponentially more evident in more culturally conservative areas.

On the other hand, younger people are much more likely to be open and receptive to the game. Many of them will have played the game themselves, either in home games or by experimenting with online poker, and they will mostly be much less judgmental than their older counterparts. Many might be fascinated by the idea, and bombard you with all kinds of questions.

Explain using metaphors

As with virtually anything else, the easiest way to explain poker to someone unfamiliar with it is to explain it in terms of something they are familiar with. Obviously for each person there might be specific comparisons that might work better than others, and this is why understanding your audience is important, but in general I find there are two metaphors that work better than most.

The first, perhaps more effective for tournament players, is the ‘professional sport’ analogy. Comparing yourself to someone paying an entrance fee to enter a golf or tennis tournament immediately makes poker easier to understand.

The second, more appropriate for cash game players but also applicable to tournaments, is the ‘stock market’ analogy. In reality all you’re doing is finding profitable opportunities to invest your money with an expected rate of return in the long run – most people understand this concept.

You may run into people who don’t understand the skill element of the game, but the best way to describe it is that while you can’t win every time you play, it is entirely possible to deliberately lose at poker – either folding every hand or going all-in every hand – and therefore the players’ decisions must bear some relevance to the average outcome. If this is the case, there must be a skill component to the game.

Be patient with others’ misconceptions

Some poker players have a tendency to assume that their job is so niche, so unique, that it’s not really worth explaining to outsiders. They look down at people and mock them for the “but how much did you lose?” mentality, when in reality that type of thinking mostly comes about because of poker’s inability to manage its image in previous years due to lack of publicity.

Nowadays, poker is more visible, and it’s much easier for people to be exposed to information that encourages them not to make the assumptions about poker that they would once have made – that poker players are just degenerate gamblers in denial. The problem, however, is that poker players now risk portraying themselves the opposite way – as aloof, intellectual elitists who look down on the very recreational poker players whose positive impression of poker allows the pros to make a living.

As a poker pro, part of your job is to make the game a welcoming environment for new players – it makes you more money, and it’s good for the game. Ridiculing people with misconceptions about the game, or becoming overly sensitive or defensive, is not the way to encourage outsiders to see poker players in a positive light.

Don’t take it personally

Finally, it’s important to recognise that people with outdated or uninformed views about poker are most likely not airing them as some kind of personal grievance against you (unless you happen to be a particularly aggravating person!). They’re just responding to the conversation in the only way they know how.

Every conversation about poker with outsiders should be treated as an opportunity to inform, and to open someone’s mind to the game. Pretty much every other profession on the planet has to deal with people’s misconceptions about it, and in 99 percent of instances these people are able to laugh it off. There’s no reason why poker players should be any different.

Finally, if none of the above helps, think of it this way – having a job or hobby that many people don’t understand is just a sign that you’re doing something those people never even knew was an option for them. In the case of anyone born before around 1960, it never was an option. Take it as a reminder that you’re lucky enough to get opportunities that other people haven’t received. In other words, you’re luckier than you think.