Teddy Sheringham Starring on the Pitch and at the Poker Tables

Plenty of former and current professional athletes have found their way to the poker tables but few can match the success that Teddy Sheringham has had. The star striker retired from competitive football at the end of the 2007-2008 season, giving him the perfect opportunity to get serious about another favorite pursuit: playing poker. He was already a rabid fan of the game from his football playing games — with poker one of the more popular ways for players to kill time when traveling and on the road — and began playing in international poker tournaments in the mid 2000s.

In an interview with online poker site PokerStars Sheringham had the following to say about how he got started with poker, playing with teammate Tony Cascarino (who’s had his own fair share of poker success) and catching the poker bug: “It’s all his fault. I’ve always played cards since I was little but it evolved from Kalooki into poker when I was at Millwall. Cas and I have always talked over the years but the topic has changed from football to poker. He’s a very good player and his knowledge of the game is far more advanced than mine because he’s played a lot more than I have.”

Teddy Sheringham began regularly playing in poker tournaments in 2005, with his best result in late 2010 in an European Poker Tour (EPT) event in Vilamoura, where he finished 5th for a payday of nearly $120,000. It was his third cash in 2010 at EPT events — with other cashes coming at EPT London and the EPT Grand Final at Monte Carlo — and capped an impressive run which saw him make the money in three of the first five EPT tournaments he entered. His best showing prior to EPT Vilamoura was a 14th pace finish worth just over $66,000 at the 2009 World Series of Poker Europe Main Event.

His success can’t just be chalked up to beginner’s luck, with several top pros that played with him at various tournaments commenting that he’s a very solid poker player and one of the better celebrities and athletes that play in top tournaments and cash games.