There seems to be an increasing level of crossover between poker and chess. And that’s important.

A longtime friend of Susie Zhao remembered her with a loving tribute in the courtroom on November 10. The hearing was a short one to sentence the person who murdered Susie Q, as many poker players knew her.

It took more than two years for the murderer of Susie Zhao to face a judge and jury in a courtroom. But once the trial started this week, the gruesome story of what Jeffery Bernard Morris did to poker’s own Susie Q led to a fairly quick conclusion.

Susie Zhao was known to many in poker as Susie Q. She was a friend and fellow poker player, not to mention a beloved daughter. She was brutally tortured and killed in the early morning hours of July 13, 2020.

Poker is a woman’s game. New York Times best-selling author Maria Konnikova may have been the first to say this because, well, poker has almost always been a man’s game.

While each has her own poker story, their shared poker journey is even more unique. What started as like-minded poker players wanting to improve their games turned into a lifelong friendship. And two Twitter posts – one from the 2021 World Series of Poker Main Event and one from this year’s same tournament – exemplify that friendship.