Former Chelsea and Man City fullback, Wayne Bridge, opens up about his experiences playing poker with the lads at Brighton & Hove Albion, who he would invite to his celebrity poker game, and much more.
Did you know that Wayne Bridge likes a bit of poker?
The former Chelsea, Man City, and England fullback featured in the recent BetStars The Big Call social media campaign, providing his predictions ahead of the Chelsea v Man City Premier League clash – correctly predicting the 2-1 win for Chelsea.
And while the former star of I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here was getting down to BetStars business, bigger brother PokerStars sat him down to ask a few questions about his experiences playing poker, and they were quite illuminating.
Bridge is one of a long line of stars of the football world who have found poker as a great form of entertainment to fill the white space in between matches. Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar Jr recently forged alliances with PokerStars, and the former Brazilian World Cup winner, Denilson, is a part of the 888Poker brigade.
Other footballers, past and present, I have seen milling around the poker tournament world include former Liverpool star Jan Molby, former Leeds ace Tomas Brolin, Barcelona star Gerard Pique, German striker Max Kruse, former Republic of Ireland international Tony Cascarino, and the former Man Utd and Spurs star Teddy Sheringham.
Bridge fell in love with poker when his friends started a local home game. The school met monthly. Bridge also plays in one day live events when he has the time and plays quite a bit online.
The former England ace played 37 times for Brighton when on loan from Man City in 2012-2013 and this is where his poker education went rapidly through the syllabus. Bridge told the PokerStars team that the card school operated on the player’s coach and in hotels during away games.
Bridge said that his toughest opponent was the former Brighton midfielder David López because he was hard to read and spoke Spanish, so you never knew what he was saying. The biggest fish in the game was the Egyptian international Adam El-Abd because you always knew when he had a good hand.
When asked to choose a few celebrities to feature in a Wayne Bridge home game he chose Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Johnny Chan, the members of the Rat Pack, Kevin Hart, and Bob Marley. When asked about the parallels between football and poker keeping your levels of concentration high and maintaining a clear head rose to the forefront of Bridge’s mind.
Bridge didn’t keep a clear head when he took and missed his one and only penalty in over 400 appearances for club and country, and he still rates taking that penalty kick as more nerve-wracking than moving all-in on a bluff.
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