Brazilian World Cup legend, Ronaldo Nazario, challenges the 14-time tennis Grand Slam winner, Rafa Nadal, to a game of heads-up poker, and PokerStars will broadcast the event live.
When you see an advert promoting a heads-up duel between Rafael Nadal and Ronaldo Nazario, you know it’s time for every online poker room in the world to pack their bags and go on an extended holiday.
It’s in the name.
Ok…the poker purist might not give a toss about the two sporting legends battling it out across the felt, but believe you me, the rest of the world will care.
This is exactly why they pay so much money to sign the biggest sports stars. It’s where the next school of fresh fish comes from.
The pair is due to square off on Nov 6, 2014, in an event marketed as The Duel. The match will take place in London and will be broadcast live. It’s the second time the pair have encountered each other across the felt. The last time they met was at EPT Prague, just before Christmas, when Nadal won a charity event that included Ronaldo. The event raised €100,000 for charity.
The last time we saw Nadal in heads-up action was against the formidable Team PokerStars Pro, Vanessa Selbst. The pair squared off in a special charity game held at the Casino de Monte Carlo. Selbst won the match.
Speaking to PokerStars at the time of the match, Alfonso Cardalda, Nadal’s poker coach said, “Playing against Vanessa was a very important part of Rafa’s poker journey. After winning in Prague, this was his next big step and he played very well against one of the best poker players in the world.”
Cardalda has some interesting coaching techniques. Here he is teaching Nadal how to bluff.
In order to prepare for the match against Ronaldo, Nadal is taking on the world in a series of play money six-max Zoom poker sessions on Stars. The last time he played in this promotion he won 20-18, and will be keen to record back-to-back wins.
The sessions will take place Sep 22 at 19:00 (CET), and the action will be broadcast live on YouTube and Pokerstars.tv.
Now let’s cross our fingers and hope that they both turn up.
Jake Cody – are you on standby?
