Ex-national player Max Kruse made a name for himself at the beginning of the year when he surprisingly moved back to Wolfsburg from Union Berlin. In the striker’s private life, however, everything is the same: As has been his habit for years, he traveled to Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker (WSOP) in June. And he’s not the only star footballer to take part in the tournament this time. Neymar was there too. The Brazilian, who breaks records on the soccer field, struggled against poker’s elite.
Card sports in the casino
The WSOP is the largest poker tournament in the world and is traditionally held in a casino in Las Vegas. This time two houses shared the event, the Bally’s and the Paris. Compared to Online Casinos, as is usual in Germany, these institutions play in a completely different league. They are among the largest hotels in the world and can accommodate thousands of guests. There are dozens of gaming tables and hundreds of slot machines on the gaming floor. And in the event halls it is no problem to hold a two-month poker tournament with more than a thousand participants. The event features more than 50 different events, including the High Roller No Limit Hold’em with a buy-in of $100,000 and the Tournament of Champions, where the winner takes home at least $1 million.
Kruse gambles and films
Max Kruse is known for his love of poker and is a regular at the WSOP. Since 2014 he has regularly used the summer break in the Bundesliga to compete with the best poker players in the world. He doesn’t do badly, even if he can’t keep up with the best of the best. Over the years, he has earned more than $160,000 from his hobby. This time Kruse again took part in numerous events at the WSOP. In addition to classics such as Texas Hold’em or Omaha Hold’em, he apparently also likes to try lesser-known variants such as 2-7, Stud or 5-Card-Draw. His fans kept Kruse over Instagram stories up to date and shared with them numerous videos and pictures showing him at the tournament. His track record this time has been mixed. In the heads-up tournament and in no-limit hold’em, for which an entry fee of 25,000 euros was due, Kruse went away empty-handed. After all, a short time later he reached his first final table, where he was eliminated in seventh place. He was able to take home a profit of 14,000 euros.
Difficult start for Neymar
Neymar, who currently plays as a striker for Paris Saint-Germain, had a difficult start to the tournament. The PokerStars brand ambassador made his debut in a 74-person limit hold’em event with a buy-in of $10,000. He was probably a bit overzealous and allowed himself to be carried away even with bad hands. So he was eliminated on the first day. Things went much better for him a week later. He entered the Super Turbo Bounty Event as one of 2227 players and still managed to finish 49th. He was even allowed to take home a small prize of $3,000. With an annual salary of 37.7 million euros, that shouldn’t make a big difference for him.
The research and creation of the text were carried out by an external editor and did not come from our own editorial team.
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