Rafael Nadal, Cristiano Ronaldo And Other Sports Stars Scheduled To Play EPT Prague Charity Event

Rafael Nadal is the number-one ranked professional tennis player in the world and Cristiano Ronaldo is a living legend in international football (soccer to out American fans), but both will be on an even playing field when they take their seats in charity poker event as part of the 2013 European Poker Tour Prague poker festival in the Czech Republic on December 12th.

Nadal joined forces with online poker giant PokerStars in June 2012, while he was sidelined from tennis competition with a knee injury. The 27-year-old worked on his poker game while preparing to return to the ATP circuit, but this will be his first live poker tournament experience. Rafa is excited to be joined in the $100,000 prize pool charity event with other international sports stars like former Ukrainian footballer Andriy Shevchenko, Italian skier Alberto Tomba, Dutch Olympic field hockey gold medallist Fatima Moreira de Melo, poker pro Daniel Negreanu and Ronaldo.

“Ronaldo has always been a hero of mine and I’m looking forward to taking him on at the poker table,” said 13-time Grand Slam champion. “The great thing about poker is that it’s a common ground for us to compete on, and there are many similarities between sport and poker strategy, so it will be good to see how he translates his game from the football field to the poker felt.”

Ronaldo has some poker experience under his belt. He is rumored to have dabbled in high-stakes online cash games and did play tournaments at the EPT Barcelona and the Brazilian Series of Poker. “This is going to be a great event, and it’s one of the few opportunities that I have to take on Rafa and the other athletes on a level playing field. We are all sports professionals, but in completely different fields, and poker is the level ground on which we can all compete fairly.”

PokerStars has been documenting Nadal’s poker education in a series of videos. In the most recent installment Nadal, a friend and his poker coach go over some hands during the tennis off-season in Mallorca, Spain.

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