Every United fan will remember that great night in 1999 when Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer scored those late goals to clinch the win in the Champions League final against Bayern Munich.
Yet if you were to be asked back then which of the two players you would expect to go into management, many would have stated Sheringham because of his intelligence on the pitch. However, it was Solksjaer who went down the management route, with him currently managing Molde in the Norwegian league and winning back-to-back league championships with them.
Sheringham on the other hand opted for something else once he retired. Despite doing bits and pieces of football punditry on occasions, his new-found career has nothing to do with football. Sheringham now likes to play poker – and he’s not too bad at all.
As a poker player he gets to travel the world to take part in some of the biggest poker tournaments, though even when he is not travelling he will be playing at home online or a few home cash games with friends.
So, Why Poker?
He is not the first and will certainly not be the last ex-footballer to take up poker once they retire from the game. Usually when players retire from football, they find it difficult to give up the game that they love, which is why many of them go into something else that is football related such as coaching or management.
With Sheringham however, rather than it being the actual sport he cannot let go of, it’s the adrenaline rush he got from playing in the games he misses the most.
By finding poker he has found a similar amount of adrenaline, something to replace what he has been missing.
Texas Hold’em
His game of choice is No Limit Texas Hold’em, the most popular form of poker worldwide. Hold’em is now attracting up to a hundred thousand players online across all gaming networks at any one time.
Playing Texas Hold’em poker that you will see on television, with each player being given two cards in their hand and then having to make the best five-card hand using any combination of those two cards and up to five community cards that come out on the table throughout the hand.
Initially, players make a bet on their first two cards dependent on their strength, three cards then fall on the table which are known as the flop, each player then calls, bets or folds their cards with them then seeing a fourth (turn) and fifth (river) card in between further betting rounds.
If all players fold during the hand, the winner is the player left standing, however if two or more players match their bets after the river, a showdown of hands is required to establish the winning player.
The game is extremely tactical however, with any player being able to win with any cards. This is due to bluffing; meaning the player with the biggest heart and will to win combined with a good knowledge of their opponents stands the best chance of success.