Asian Poker Tour officials have invited Olympic record-breaking swimmer Michael Phelps to their APT Macau event for the second straight year. Phelps, who recently won 5 gold medals and 1 silver medal at the World Championships, has yet to respond to the APT’s open letter.
An excerpt of the open letter that was sent to Phelps read, “Last year you were in Beijing for the Olympics and we encouraged you to head down to the Asian Poker Tour Macau event at the StarWorld. We heard positive noises, but there was no sign of the human dolphin when they called ‘shuffle up and deal.’ We would like to extend this invite once again for you to come, all expenses paid, and take part in this showpiece poker event.”
APT Macau is a 12 day-long poker event held at the StarWorld Hotel and Casino in Macau, and is complete with festivities and poker tournaments. The Main Event, which Michael Phelps is invited to, takes place on August 20th and runs until August 23rd. Yevgeniy Timoshenko was the champion of the Main Event last year and he won the $500,000 first place prize. Timoshenko had to outlast a stacked field of pros before going against Steve Yea in the heads-up final.
In addition to the returning champion Timoshenko, the APT Macau field will also included noted players like Steve Sung, J.C. Tran, Nam Le, David “Chino” Rheem, Quinn Do, Kwang Soo Lee, and Johnny Chan who holds 10 WSOP gold bracelets. The participation of Michael Phelps would add one more star to the mix.
Phelps first achieved world-wide fame after winning 6 gold medals and 2 bronze medals in the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. Phelps followed that performance up with a record 8 gold medals at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China.
