John Juanda was too busy with high-stakes fitness prop bets to play poker

John Juanda disappeared from the live tournament circuit in the summer of 2014, only to return with a bang by winning the EPT Barcelona Main Event for more than €1 million! In a recent interview he talked about a couple of fitness prop bets that kept him away from the tables since last summer.

John Juanda is a five-time WSOP bracelet winner and Poker Hall of Fame nominee with more than $17 million in live tournament earnings, so it was surprising to see him vanish from the live circuit for almost a year.

According to Juanda, he was far too busy with prop bets to play any poker:

''At a Christmas party I drank a little bit too much and made several prop bets that included pull-ups, running and more. He bet me that I won't be able to do 20 pull-ups after six months of training. I think this was a bad bet on my part, because back then I was only able to do around 6 pull-ups.''

Juanda then proceeded not to train for two months.

''At that point I decided that I should either give up or start training hard. We increased the stakes and this gave me enough motivation to do the bet.''

Juanda ended up winning the bet, although the stakes have not been disclosed (but it must have been a pretty substantial sum if it was enough to keep Juanda away from the tables).

''We also made a couple of bets involving running. In one of the bets I had to run 100 yards while he had to hop 50 yards on one leg. I thought it through and decided that there is no way that he is faster than me on one leg.''

Juanda claims that it has been a long time that he has been in such a good shape physically and the training most likely helped him in winning the EPT Barcelona title aswell.