All fans of ‘The Cobra’ – Carl Froch, a World Boxing Association and International Boxing Federation champion, will have the chance to see if he can ‘knock-out’ opponents in another popular game – poker. He was announced to take part in the WPT500 event in Nottingham.
There has been many famous athletes and celebrities who have sat together with professional poker players to enjoy a game together. Nelly, Kevin Pollak, Shannon Elisabeth, Michael Phelps and many others, the list goes on.
The event will be held during the World Poker Tour in the United Kingdom, at the Dusk Till Dawn poker room. The Cobra will take a little break from training for the match against Julio Cesar Chaves Junior and will relax playing poker on November 9. The succession of WPT events will begin on November 6. Froch will first join Mike Sexton, one of the few poker pros to be on the Poker Hall of Fame list, at the opening of the first day of the WPT500 before testing his luck and skills on the table.
This is the first event from the three biggest poker events in the United Kingdom to be organized in a city other than London. Froch said he is excited about the game and looks forward to ‘knock out’ anyone who sits on his table.
Froch is the second famous athlete to accept an invitation for the WPT500 after the football player Stuart Pearce, who played at the Nottingham Student Union. As Nottingham is Froch’s city of birth, he is happy to welcome all fans of both boxing and poker to join him at the Dusk Till Dawn and hopes that the event will gather as many guests as the Webbley Stadium.
The Cobra further shared that as he is not a hardcore poker player, the event seems perfect for him with a $800 buy-in, which he considers a medium-range price for a poker tournament, and the possibility of winning over $1.6 million. He continued to joke that he will play as seriously as he does during his boxing matches and that if he manages to win the event, he may as well try his luck in Las Vegas next time he plays in a tournament. He made an association with Las Vegas ,as his next big match is planned to take place there.
Froch is a four-time world champion in the super middleweight division and is the current IBF champion. His manager, Eddie Hearn, says he is confident that he will take down the current WBC middleweight champion, Julio Chavez Junior, at a planned match in Las Vegas in 2015.
The World Poker Tour will open on November 6 with a WPT Warm Up with $200 buy-in and $400,000 overall prize pool. The event Froch will join will start on November 9 with the WPT Main Event being the icing on the cake with a $5,800 entry fee and $1.6 million preliminary prize pool.
