Sadly, it's not an April Fool's joke — the Only Friends podcast is likely ending its 700+ episode run. As reported by Tim Fiorvanti on PokerOrg, chief Friend Matt Berkey announced that they had received 30-day notice of their townhouse/studio lease ending. At the very least, there will be a hiatus while they find a new home and rethink the show's mission.
However, if I were a betting man, I'd lay fairly long odds against the show coming back. I was listening to the show live, and around the 1:27:00 mark, they're getting ready to wrap the show. Guapo is even rolling the outro music. Then frequent guest Jesse Sylvia says, "Can I just tell one story before we bounce?"
Jesse described playing in a local tournament in Vegas and a fellow entrant approaching him. This person said that even though they'd never met, they felt like Jesse was a friend, after all the times they'd seen him on Only Friends.
Cancel the outro music. In the subsequent 20 minutes, we saw what felt like a very real, transparent, and uncharacteristically vulnerable Matt Berkey talk about what he had hoped for the podcast and what the reality had turned out to be.
Which includes, but is not limited to...
For over three years, Berkey and his merry band of co-conspirators talked about poker, sports-ball, poker, crypto, poker, pop culture, Pittsburgh, and poker. But what really mattered is that they did it every weekday, with few exceptions. So if somebody won a million dollar pot on Hustler Casino Live, or there was a breaking cheating scandal, we heard about it the next day, live from a townhouse cum studio in west Las Vegas.
It was that heartbeat that made things work.
I loved knowing that I could tune in daily and always be on top of the latest news, views, and gossip in the poker world. Because I'm a poker junkie, I also loved the occasional descent into strategy. Looking back, it wasn't so much the strategy itself. It was knowing that I was in the presence of fellow junkies. They would do an 'In the Muck' segment about a $1/2 no-limit hold'em hand, and all of them, including Berkey and Landon Tice, would treat it like brain surgery. It didn't matter that the entire pot would represent one big blind in Berkey's regular game or the tournament fee in one of Tice's tournament buy-ins. The point was that it was a poker hand, plenty excuse to give it their full attention and analysis.
Every poker keener out there recognizes the Only Friends crew as birds of a feather and thus relatable. And thanks to Time Stamp Bro, we could skip past the sports-ball discussion.
A big pulpit for the little guy and gal
Because of Berkey's stature in the poker world, Only Friends was able to get the attention of poker's movers and shakers — attention that would have been far beyond the reach of the average person.
In particular, the podcast held a particular loathing for cheaters, scammers, angle-shooters, and the various other bad actors who plague the poker industry. There are a couple of people who are no longer welcome on some of the major live poker tours — I don't think it's a coincidence that their names were repeatedly dropped on Only Friends any time the topic of cheating came up.
A peek behind the curtain and a trip down memory lane
I probably wasn't the only one who particularly enjoyed Berkey's tales from the high-stakes cash game world. Most of us see it only through the glass of the private section of the poker rooms — it was a treat to get the reports from the #4 seat. On days when I was recovering from losing a nice Martin guitar in a $5/10 game, it was strangely comforting to have Matt describe losing a nice Summerlin condo. I probably should discuss that with my therapist.
On a more relatable note, I loved the trips down memory lane about poker in the twenty-teens. Having been there myself, I was tickled to get a perspective from somebody who was in the same poker room, at the same tournament festival, and yet in a completely different world.
Who's who
Over the 700 episodes, the guest chairs hosted the butts of some of the coolest people in poker and adjacent universes. Adam Pliska, Victoria Livschitz, Andrew 'Lucky Chewy' Lichtenberger, Caitlin Comeskey, Henry Kilbane, Jean-Robert Bellande, Nick Howard, and blackjack whiz Gina Fiore, just to name a few. I can't even begin to remember everybody who called in, but suffice to say that it ran the gamut from all-round smart guy Andrew Barber to Nick Vertucci.
Also, I need to note that I had the extraordinary privilege of being live on the show a couple of times. That was definitely on the greatest hits list of my poker career.
Curtain call
As I said, Berkey and crew left the door cracked open just enough that Only Friends could rise, phoenix-like, from a new studio. But more likely, we poker news and views junkies will have a new hour available to us most weekdays. I've never been sadder to get more time back.
So to André Hengchua, Brian Lamanna, Christian Soto, Conrad Simpson, Jesse Sylvia, Landon Tice, Matt Hunt, Melissa Schubert, Miguel 'Guapo' Gonzalez, and Nikki Limo: thank you — y'all are the best. As that tournament player told Jesse, there are probably thousands of poker players out there who think of you as friends, even though you've never met. You could do a lot worse in this world.
The curtain call always ends with the star of the show, so Matt Berkey, please come out and take a bow. Thank you for hosting a (mostly) daily (mostly) poker-oriented water cooler gathering these past three years. I hope you can get that pickleball court built now and that whatever comes next is even better than Only Friends.
But that is going to be a damn high bar to clear.
