Tennis star James Blake turns to poker | Online Poker Bonus

Now tennis retirement is coming closer for James Blake at age 31, he is becoming a wise man. Blake is playing more and more poker these days and he is pretty good at it.

The American tennis pro began playing poker in 2004, when he was asked for Bravo’s Celebrity Poker Showdown. He didn’t want to appear as some donkey on TV so he started learning the basics and practising. He did well and finished second out of 5 contestants.

James Blake wouldn’t be the first poker player who made a career switch. The first notable tennis pro who made the switch was Yevgeni Kafelnikov in 2004. ‘Kalashnikov’ did fine in several World Poker Tour and World Series of Poker Events with in-the-money finishes. Then there are Gael Monfils (currently just out of the top 10 in tennis) and of course Boris Becker. They both have a lucrative contract with Pokerstars and get staked in the bigger tournaments by the poker room.

Becker about the similarities of poker and tennis: “Like tennis, poker is very much a mind game”. The German tennis legend plays as much as 8 hours a day and gets teaching from notable poker pros.

Back to James Blake. Currently injured, he has more time to focus on poker. Last year Blake signed a contract with Full Tilt Poker and is playing online cash games on the site of his sponsor. He plays as high as $10/$20 Blinds, both in No Limit Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha.

Do we see a trend of ex-sports players switching to poker. Next to the aforementioned tennis players, we recently saw soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo at the virtual poker tables and famous cricket player Shane Warne sign with 888 Poker. Who knows this all helps with the image of poker..