{"id":26351,"date":"2013-03-15T19:08:12","date_gmt":"2013-03-15T18:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/?p=26351"},"modified":"2020-12-07T07:42:58","modified_gmt":"2020-12-07T07:42:58","slug":"a-mixed-bag-of-players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/a-mixed-bag-of-players.html","title":{"rendered":"A Mixed Bag of Players"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/6659999101_2eeccb43f6_z.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-26352 size-full\" title=\"Steve Watts\" src=\"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/6659999101_2eeccb43f6_z.jpg\" alt=\"WPT Poker Pro\" width=\"590\" height=\"256\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/6659999101_2eeccb43f6_z.jpg 590w, https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/6659999101_2eeccb43f6_z-300x130.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 590px) 100vw, 590px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>There are those who say it is music that brings people together, others say the same about \u201cthe beautiful game\u201d of football 9soccer to those of you from across the pond. But for me, it is poker that brings so many different types of people, from all over the world, together in a battle of wits.<\/p>\n<p>At the far end of this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/\">vast poker room<\/a>, lit by the trademark blue WPT lighting, a table contains the former EPT Loutraki champion <strong>Zimnan Ziyard<\/strong>, a diminutive Asian girl, a man sporting oversized glasses and a spectacular deer hunter hat, the tallest man in poker (and possibly the world) <strong>Karl Mahrenholz<\/strong>, a young gentlemen reading an e-book on his Kindle that is asking the question \u201cAre Economists Rational?\u201d Oh, and the former professional footballer <strong>Steve Watts<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Watts retired from football in 2011 who turned to poker towards the end of his sporting career. To date, Watts has won just shy of $400,000 from live poker tournaments, his biggest cash being for \u20ac78,000 which he won for finishing fifth in the 2012 Irish Open. Watts also finished fifth in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wpt-2013-tournament-schedule.html\">WPT Dublin Main Event<\/a>, also in 2012.<\/p>\n<p>Where can you mix with such a diverse array of people? Here at Aspers Casino Westfield that\u2019s where. Get yourself down here with \u00a31,650 in your pocket and you can buy in and become part of the festivities here. Late registration is open for another three hours 40 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>Eighty-seven of the 94 starters remain in the field.<\/p>\n<h3>Have you ever played poker alongside a former professional sports person?<\/h3>\n<p>As the question says, have you ever played poker against anyone famous outside of the poker world? Let us know in the comments below and remember to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.twitter.com\/PartyPoker\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>follow us<\/strong><\/a> on Twitter and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/PartyPoker\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>like us<\/strong><\/a> on Facebook now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are those who say it is music that brings people together, others say the same about \u201cthe beautiful game\u201d of football 9soccer to those of you from across the pond. But for me, it is poker that brings so many different types of people, from all over the world, together in a battle of<\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/a-mixed-bag-of-players.html\" title=\"Read More\">Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":26352,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2182,300],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26351"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26351"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100370,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26351\/revisions\/100370"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26351"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=26351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}