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Rafa Nadal showed off an outstanding debut at the live poker tables, as he took home the trophy for winning the EPT Prague charity event.
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On 12 December, the charity event of the EPT Prague schedule took place. The tournament featured Rafa Nadal as its highlight; the 13 times Grand Slam champion debuted now at the live poker tables, as he has only been playing online since joining the PokerStars team in July 2012.
The charity event offered a prize pool of €100,000, a share of which going to all six entrants of the tournament. Nadal was accompanied by two times football world champion Ronaldo, former AC Milan star Andriy Shevchenko, three times Olympic medallist skier Alberto Tomba, Olympic medallist field hockey player Fatima Moreira de Melo and poker pro Daniel Negreanu. The first prize was €50,000 and players got to decide which charity to support with their winnings.
The seat draw was as follows:
Seat 1: Fatima Moriera de Melo
Seat 2: Rafa Nadal
Seat 3: Ronaldo
Seat 4: Daniel Negreanu
Seat 5: Andriy Shevchenko
Seat 6: Alberto Tomba
Players started out tentatively but the relatively short stack structure of the tournament did not enable a lot of hesitation. As a result, action gained momentum soon enough and it was Tomba out first, shoving on the 2
T J
flop with pocket sixes and getting called by Negreanu, who held top pair. The last streets did not help the sportsman.
Next, the ‘real Ronaldo’ got railed, his K
8 proving insufficient against Moreira de Melo’s A T. Shortstack Nadal started coming back at this point, doubling up through Negreanu in two hands and diminishing the Canadian WSOP champion’s stack significantly. A couple of hands later, Nadal opened with 5
5, Negreanu called all-in with A 7 and Shevchenko shoved as well with 8 8. Nadal tanked a bit and decided to call. The board came 3-J-5-J-T to give him a full house, Shevchenko dropped to shortstack and Negreanu got eliminated.
Soon, the 2004 Ballon d'Or award winner Ukrainian shoved with J-9, Nadal called with K-8 and won. His stack outweighed that of Moreira de Melo 10:1 at the beginning of the heads-up.
Nadal – 108,000
Moreira de Melo – 12,000
Moreira de Melo, in fact, managed to take over the lead but Nadal came back with a double-up and, eventually, won the final hand with a Q-T against his opponent’s T-6s.
Nadal donated his €50,000 prize money to his own charity foundation The Good Hand Project. The fund aims to help the unemployed in Spain.
“I had fun. I had a great experience here playing with friends, playing for a good cause, for charity. And the next thing I know is that tomorrow morning I will be on court at 9am practicing tennis,” Nadal said.
“He came in really solid and he didn't make any mistakes. And then he knew when to make the adjustment, to play more aggressively, and he did. The bottom line is that everybody wins because it's all going to good causes," poker pro Negreanu commented.
The end results are as follows:
1st: Rafa Nadal – €50,000
2nd: Fatima Moreira de Melo – €25,000
3rd: Andriy Shevchenko – €10,000
4th: Daniel Negreanu – €5,000
5th: Ronaldo – €5,000
6th: Alberto Tomba – €5,000