Originally Posted by esspoker
Recently a guy in my local card room has been sitting near me and making conversation. He always likes to sit next to me. We began chatting and he's a nice guy, had a nice conversation but we're playing poker. My image goes down, and I have a hard time focusing while talking to someone.
Curious how to manage this long term. I don't want to be the silent sharky kind of player. I'd like to be more social and have a loose friendly game. But whenever I make buddies like this I feel like I'm being exposed and play worse.