The Rugby Players with one eye on the Future

For many sportsmen and women, they only have a small window in their careers to earn a lot of money and potentially set themselves up financially for their rest of their lives. There are obviously the lucky ones that remain in the game in coaching capacities but the opportunities are limited at best.

So, during the latter stages of their careers, it can become quite a stressful time as they look to plan for the future and safeguard their families. For two rugby professionals though, they had their eyes on another sport to transition into come retirement. Ex-England rugby player Mike Tindall and French rugby ace Sebastien Chabal decided that the lure of poker was too strong to dismiss.

Many ex-professional athletes have found their way into professional poker events. Stars such as German tennis legend Boris Becker who has played at multiple World Series of Poker events, ex-Manchester United footballer Sam Trickett has become one of the highest earning poker players today with career earnings of $19 million and then there’s Formula 1 driver Nico Rosberg who’s been participating in events during his downtime. So, the lure of poker seems to appeal to a lot of sports stars.

Mike Tindall first started playing when he had to spend some time away from the pitch due to a serious injury and famously placed third in the British Open. Since that achievement Tindall had mainly been focusing on his playing career with Gloucester. However, with his recent announcement that he has officially retired from competitive rugby, Tindall is expected to feature more heavily in British poker tournaments.

Sebastien Chabal, the ex-France lock is also an avid poker participant, and now that he has retired from the game, like Tindall, he is expected to feature more frequently in world poker events. The bulk of tournaments Chabal has featured in are mainly high-profile charity poker tournaments. There’s also New Zealand-born England international Dylan Hartley, who like Chabal likes to attend as many poker events as possible.

Many attribute the lure of poker such as the aforementioned rugby players because of the psychological aspect the sport has similarly to rugby. There’s also the fact that poker is now so accessible to the world via a multitude of platforms which allows novice players to learn from the professionals. And people can play online competitively to gain experience of handling pressure situations in an environment that is foreign to them.

The popularity of poker has also grown exponentially over the last 10 years with the poker industry moving with the times and now reaches a much wider audience. Poker legends such as Phil Ivey who has won 10 WSOP bracelets is a household name and the financial gains from the sport at the elite level are astronomical. But it’s the way in which some amateur success stories grab the public’s imagination that makes poker so appealing to the masses. In 2003 Chris Moneymaker won the WSOP via an Internet qualifier – the first player to ever achieve this feat. And ever since Internet poker became such a powerful trend in the Internet landscape back in 1996 through the launch of InterCasino, poker enthusiasts have dreamed of rags to riches stories such as the high-profile Moneymaker accomplishment.

Whether this is attainable for likes of Chabal and Tindall remains to be seen. However, ex-sportsmen do have good track records when it comes to poker – you only have to reference the aforementioned Trickett to prove that point. But if they do, like widely reported, opt to feature more heavily is some of the professional tournaments it could possibly carve out a lucrative career for the ex-rugby stars.