Teddy Sheringham is one of the most successful soccer players of the last half a century. His professional career lasted twenty-four years, making him one of the game’s survivors. His quality as a player earned him an MBE, presented to him by Prince Charles for services to soccer on the 20th of November 2007.

He is also father to Charlie Sheringham, who has had a successful league and non-league career, and now plays for AFC Wimbledon as a striker. Teddy too played mainly as a second striker, first for Millwall between 1983 and 1991, before moving on to Tottenham Hotspur and then Manchester United – it was whilst playing for MU that he was named PFA Player of the Year in 20001.

He retired in 2007/08, at the age of 4, spending his time improving his poker game. He is now a frequent on the world poker scene, and has racked up over $300,000 in live tournament winnings, including two World Series of Poker (WSOP) cashes. He also has a final table finish at a leg of the European Poker Tour under his belt, which netted him a cool €93,000.

Two final table appearances in the Palm Beach Big Game and a final table finish at The Ritz Club mean that he is no rookie – he has been playing seriously for the last six years, but has been playing poker throughout his adult life.

He learned to play poker in dens, hotels and on coaches, and says that he really learned to play poker by losing money. He has a tendency, like a lot of new players, to go for big hands and pairs, to be flash and cool. Now he says “it’s more about trying to figure out what other people have got, using real skill, and whether they’re bluffing. You have to think ahead.”

Luckily, since bwin started up, you don’t need to lose money to learn to play poker well. For beginners, Texas hold’em is usually considered the best starting point, you can find all the details here: poker.bwin.be/nl/texas-holdem.

You can practice hands and enter freeroll tournaments with bwin without spending anything at all – and according to most pros out there, the new guys who learn online are the best players out there. Start with free tournaments, learn the ropes, and then build up to cash games with the free bwin poker school.