When most people think about the FIFA World Cup, they think about moments. The winning goal. The last second save. The eruption of a stadium when a match changes in an instant. When people think about poker, they often imagine similar flashes of drama: a massive bluff, a critical hand, a tournament-clinching moment that changes everything.
But competitors in both worlds understand something spectators often don’t. The biggest moments are rarely about the moment itself. They’re about everything that came before it.
That spirit was on display during a recent Kicking Back watch party hosted by High Times, ACR Poker, and former professional football player (and Survivor winner) Ethan Zohn at Torches in New York City. Fans gathered to watch England take on Croatia, turning a single match into something bigger: a shared experience built around competition, community, and the world’s game.
“We’re excited to partner with ACR Poker, Ethan, and the football and cannabis communities around Kicking Back,” said Kyle Rosner, Director of Partnerships for High Times. “The watch party captured exactly what this moment is about: community, competition, and a once-in-a-lifetime World Cup experience.”
As Zohn sees it, those communities have more in common than people might think.
“Football and cannabis bring people together in a way that little else can,” said Zohn. “They give instant access to community, break down cultural stereotypes, and bring positivity to the world.”
While football is ultimately a physical game and poker is not, both reward competitors who can process information, adjust to changing circumstances, and make smart decisions under pressure. That same competitive mindset sits at the heart of tournament poker culture, including on ACR Poker where players regularly navigate large-field events that test patience, preparation, and decision-making over hours, and sometimes days, of play.
At the highest levels, both are mental games as much as anything else.
Mastering the Fundamentals of Decision-Making
The physical demands of football are obvious. What is less obvious is how much of the modern game is intellectual. Elite clubs and national teams spend enormous time teaching systems, tactics, and decision making—not just where to run or when to pass, but how to read changing situations in real time.
England’s 4-2 victory over Croatia offered a good example. After a chaotic first half ended level at 2-2, England could have taken a more conservative approach after the break. Instead, they continued to attack aggressively, trusting what they had seen over the opening 45 minutes. The chances were there. The opportunities were there. The fundamentals were working.
Jude Bellingham rewarded that belief almost immediately after halftime, helping shift momentum decisively in England’s favor.
Poker players face similar decisions all the time. A player may be holding a strong starting hand after suffering through a difficult stretch of bad results. The temptation is often to become cautious, to play defensively, or to abandon a strategy that has worked over the long run simply because recent outcomes have been frustrating.
The best players resist that temptation.
Whether it’s a football manager trusting his system or a poker player trusting mathematically sound decision-making, elite competitors understand that pressure is often the moment when fundamentals matter most.
The public sees highlights. Competitors focus on the quality of the decisions that created them.
Reading Opponents Is a Skill
The best football teams don’t walk into a World Cup match blindly.
Long before kickoff, coaching staffs study film, identifying patterns, weaknesses, and tendencies they can exploit later. Maybe an opposing fullback drifts out of position, a striker favors one flank, or a team comes apart whenever it has to play from behind.
The smallest observation can become the difference between winning and losing.
Iran’s scoreless draw against Belgium provided a strong example of this principle. Belgium controlled possession for long stretches, but Iran appeared to recognize where the danger was most likely to come from. Rather than chasing the ball and allowing space to open centrally, they stayed compact, protected key areas of the pitch, and forced Belgium into lower-quality opportunities.
It wasn’t necessarily the more talented team dictating the match. It was the team that best understood what its opponent wanted to do.
Poker players operate with a remarkably similar mindset. Success isn’t simply about understanding your own strategy. It’s also about understanding the people you’re competing against.
Who plays aggressively? Who becomes cautious when pressure increases? Who changes their behavior after losing a significant hand? Who remains predictable?
Perfect knowledge isn’t the goal, because it’s never available. The goal is to read the situation more accurately than whoever sits across from you. In both football and poker, information is a resource, and the competitors who use it best gain ground long before anyone else notices.
Adjusting When the Plan Breaks
No game unfolds exactly as planned. Every coach knows it, and every poker player knows it. A football team can spend weeks preparing for a specific opponent, only for an injury, tactical shift, or early goal to change the entire match. Suddenly, the original plan is only part of the equation.
The same thing happens in tournament poker. Tables reshuffle, opponents rotate, and chip stacks rise and fall throughout the day. Strong competitors don’t get attached to one approach. Preparation gives them a foundation, but adaptability determines how well they respond when the game changes.
Pressure Is the Real Opponent
The World Cup is filled with emotional moments.
A missed opportunity. A costly mistake. A heartbreaking loss.
The challenge for elite players isn’t avoiding those moments. It’s responding to them. A footballer who misses a penalty may still have thirty minutes left to play.
The test is whether they can reset and keep making smart decisions instead of replaying the miss on a loop.
Poker players face similar tests.
A player may lose a significant hand despite making the correct decision. They may watch hours of work disappear in a matter of seconds. The emotional challenge is immediate.
Can they remain disciplined? Can they avoid frustration? Can they continue making strong decisions instead of chasing losses or abandoning their strategy?
Talent matters. Preparation matters. But emotional control often determines whether competitors can consistently apply those skills when pressure peaks.
Surviving Tournament Life
This is where the connection between the World Cup and poker becomes impossible to ignore, because both are ultimately tournaments. And tournaments are designed to eliminate people.
The expanded World Cup gives more teams a chance to step onto the biggest stage in the sport. Zohn connected that underdog energy directly to cannabis culture, saying, “48 teams. That’s the World Cup giving every underdog nation a shot to shine on the biggest stage there is. Cannabis is having that same moment right now—the underdog stepping into the light, going mainstream, right alongside the world’s game. That’s progress.”
That sense of opportunity is part of what makes tournament formats so compelling. More entrants mean more stories. More pressure. More paths to an unexpected run.
The World Cup starts with a crowded field and ends with one team standing. Each stage raises the stakes, tightens the margin for error, and makes every decision feel heavier.
Tournament poker follows a remarkably similar path. Large-field events begin with hundreds or thousands of entrants, and the same arc takes hold. As players bust out, the survivors feel every decision weighs a little heavier.
This is one reason tournament poker stays so compelling on platforms like ACR Poker. Players aren’t facing a single opponent—they’re navigating an entire field and trying to outlast everyone in it.
The deeper a competitor advances, the less room there is to recover from a mistake. A football team doesn’t need to dominate every match to win a World Cup. It needs to survive and advance.
A poker player doesn’t need to win every hand to reach a final table. They need to survive and advance. The principle is the same. The field narrows. The pressure rises. The margin for error disappears. And eventually, only a handful of competitors remain.
The Reps Nobody Sees
When fans look back on the World Cup, they’ll remember the highlights. The goals. The celebrations. The unforgettable finishes.
Poker fans often remember similar moments: dramatic hands, final tables, and championship victories.
But those moments are only the visible part of the story. Behind every great performance are countless hours spent studying, analyzing, preparing, adapting, and learning how to perform under pressure.
That is what made the Kicking Back watch party work. It wasn’t only about one match or one brand. It was about the overlap between competition and community, the way a game can pull people into the same room and give them something to feel together.
Whether the setting is a packed stadium, a New York watch party, or a major tournament on ACR Poker, success is rarely determined by a single moment.
It’s usually determined by the quality of decisions made long before that moment ever arrives. That’s the work nobody sees.
And it’s often what separates competitors who participate from competitors who last.
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Sponsored Content Disclaimer: This article was published as part of a paid commercial arrangement with ACR Poker. It is not independent editorial content. References to products, services, promotions, platform features, or company claims reflect the sponsor’s perspective unless otherwise noted and have not been independently verified by High Times.
