David Haye To Become Professional Poker Player?

What do you do when you’re a unified cruiserweight world champ and a heavyweight championship title to boot? You give it all up to play a card game.

David Haye retired in June this year to put more time into his boxing promotion business. Now business must be a bit slow because he’s also taken on a sponsorship deal with the UK Grosvenor casino chain.

Following in the footsteps of Antony Holden and Maria Konnikova, Haye will be taking a year to learn how to play poker, before testing his skills next year in the 2019 Goliath.

David vs Goliath

The Goliath is the largest live tournament outside of the WSOP in terms of number of players. Hosted at the G Casino in Coventry, the £125 buy-in event (running as we speak) attracted 6,385 players last year. 

Next year the number will include David Haye. This year he showed his face as part of the press tour, but declined to buy in.

He’ll be tutored in the meantime by various pros including Grosvenor pros Jeff Kimber, Katie Swift, and Hendon Mobber Joe Beevers. In a press statement he said of the challenge:

“The next 12 months will be exciting, but I am also acutely aware that they will also be extremely challenging. I'm a complete novice so it's a huge ask, but I am looking forward to the challenge and getting my teeth into something new before taking on Goliath.”