CHENNAI: Five-time world chess champion Viswanathan Anand has signed on as brand ambassador for the Poker Sports League.
The founders of the Poker Sports League (PSL) call it their ‘biggest move ever’, towards changing the negative perception of the game in the country. Anand, who refers to poker as “chess with a deck of cards”, says he wants to learn the game as many of his friends in the chess circuit play Texas Hold ‘Em. “In chess, I am called the poker-faced player. So maybe it’s time to learn to play the game,” media reports quote Anand as saying.
“I have been following poker for a few years now. It is a game of skill and that’s perhaps why chess players take to poker naturally. It’s got me intrigued,” said Anand, who now plans to learn the game as he is still, in chess terminology, an “unrated amateur” in poker.
“What I have observed though is that poker and chess have some similarities in thinking process and being a chess player may actually influence your poker playing style,” said Anand.
