Home / Poker News January 2013 / The Poker Grapevine – Nadal Wins his First Poker Tournament
The Poker Grapevine – Nadal Wins his First Poker Tournament
Posted by: Mark Baldwing - Mon, 2013-01-28 07:05
Tennis star Rafael Nadal was hired by PokerStars in a blockbuster move a few months ago, a move that ended up generating quite a bit of publicity from the get go.
PokerStars have long had a history of hiring sports stars to represent the brand, but unlike German tennis star Boris Becker, people didn’t really expect Nadal to actually hit the green felt too. Needless to say, his poker portfolio wasn’t particularly well-padded with impressive achievements either. It is now safe to declare that Nadal’s poker dry spell is over: the Spaniard has just won his first
poker tournament. Nadal played at pokerstars.es, buying into a €10
NL Holdem event. While the prize-pool wasn’t particularly impressive, nor was the size of the buy-in reminiscent of Sunday majors or serious live poker events, the achievement was still there. A total of 47 players bought in. Nadal picked up €152.4 for his first place.
While the financial impact of the victory is certainly insignificant, the confidence-boost that it may generate far outweighs it.
Nadal has been sidelined from tennis for 8 months now, with tendonitis in his knee. He didn’t take part in the Olympics, he didn’t play in the US Open and he missed the Australian Open as well. It appears he’s used the time to sharpen his poker skills, and he’s reaping the dividends now.
In other news: Phil Ivey’s
online poker education site had been scheduled to launch on January 14, but it has obviously failed to meet the deadline. Instead of actually launching the operation, Ivey kept busy adding further players to his team of professionals. Dan Smith signed with him recently, together with Andrew Lichtenberger, Kevin Vandersmissen, Ronnie Bardah and Matthew Frankland.
Smith and Lichtenberger already have poker-training experience.
