Poker
Hershiser started playing poker competitively in 2006. After retirement from baseball he moved to Las Vegas and befriended a poker instructor. He has become a regular at Red Rock’s poker room in Las Vegas, playing $2–$5 NLHE. In the baseball off-season, he plays about five days per week. And even during baseball season when he flies to the ESPN studios several days a week, he still manages to get in one or two sessions a week. Soon, Hershiser was known as The Bulldog at the poker table.
Hershiser signed with Poker Royalty to represent his poker career. He was invited to participate in the 2008 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship. Playing under the PokerStars banner. Hershiser stunned the poker world by making the quarterfinals, defeating 2006 event champion Ted Forrest, Allen Cunningham, and Freddy Deeb—players who had won a total of 12 World Series of Poker bracelets heading into the event. Andy Bloch defeated him in the quarterfinals.
After his finish in the 2008 NBC Heads-Up Championship, Hershiser signed a deal to become a professional poker player with PokerStars under the screen name ‘O. Hershiser’. Since signing with Friends of PokerStars, Hershiser has played in a number of events, including the 2008 World Series of Poker and the 2009 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. Hershiser won $54,570 on September 7, 2008 by taking ninth place in the $10,000 Pokerstars World Championship of Online Poker Event 5. Hershiser also has made a tradition of giving an autographed baseball to the poker player that eliminates him.
Read more about this topic: Orel Hershiser
Famous quotes containing the word poker:
“The poker player learns that sometimes both science and common sense are wrong; that the bumblebee can fly; that, perhaps, one should never trust an expert; that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of by those with an academic bent.”
—David Mamet (b. 1947)