{"id":1626,"date":"2012-08-23T20:11:18","date_gmt":"2012-08-24T00:11:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thepokerpractice.com\/poker\/?p=1626"},"modified":"2012-08-29T20:17:33","modified_gmt":"2012-08-30T00:17:33","slug":"national-enquirer-michael-phelps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thepokerpractice.com\/poker\/national-enquirer-michael-phelps","title":{"rendered":"National Enquirer addresses Michael Phelps’ Poker Passion"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Recently, the National Enquirer posted an article covering Michael Phelps\u2019 new passion \u2013 poker. This story isn\u2019t about a diet fad or new celebrity relationship, which seems to be this tabloid\u2019s most common topics; instead, they\u2019re covering the Olympic legend\u2019s deep interest in poker. Apparently this interest has led to Phelps waging high amounts of money during poker games. Here is a peek at what the National Enquirer had to say:<\/p>\n

\u201cAll Michael thinks about is gam\u00adbling,\u201d said a poker buddy of the star swimmer. \u201cWhen he\u2019s home in Maryland, Michael plays in a weekly card game where the buy-in is $25,000. Michael has wagered hundreds of thousands of dollars on poker already, and now that he\u2019s retired from competitive swimming, every\u00adone\u2019s worried he\u2019ll be betting mil\u00adlions more.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

As with a lot of tabloids, the sources are hardly reliable and gossip magazines don\u2019t mind printing false claims. So you can take the \u201cpoker buddy\u2019s\u201d claims with a grain of salt. But since Phelps is most likely done with competitive swimming, it\u2019s possible that he is putting his full focus on poker. A line in the Enquirer article addressed this with the following:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s obvious he is competitive, but by not swimming competitively anymore he will need to have something to focus his energy on. Poker is competitive enough, and he already confessed that he has some friends on the inside. Phelps admitted: \u201cI love to play poker. I\u2019ve been playing for a few years\u2026I\u2019ve met some of my best friends at a poker table.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

He\u2019s used online poker to better his game, beginning with $1\/$2 games and eventually working up to $100\/$200 No-Limit Texas Hold\u2019em games. Seeing Michael Phelps transition his success from swimming to poker would be exciting and may even create new interest in the game. As for the complete National Enquirer article, here\u2019s the\u00a0link<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently, the National Enquirer posted an article covering Michael Phelps\u2019 new passion \u2013 poker. This story isn\u2019t about a diet fad or new celebrity relationship, which seems to be this tabloid\u2019s most common topics; instead, they\u2019re covering the Olympic legend\u2019s deep interest in poker. Apparently this interest has led to Phelps waging high amounts of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[946,958,959,1886,11,155],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepokerpractice.com\/poker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1626"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepokerpractice.com\/poker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepokerpractice.com\/poker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepokerpractice.com\/poker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepokerpractice.com\/poker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1626"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepokerpractice.com\/poker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1629,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepokerpractice.com\/poker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1626\/revisions\/1629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepokerpractice.com\/poker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepokerpractice.com\/poker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepokerpractice.com\/poker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}