Ever since the whispers of Michael Phelps being a poker player surfaced through the media, numerous news outlets and bloggers have taken the story and ran with it.  I myself have definitely been guilty of getting caught up in the Phelps/poker hysteria although I had some reservations over how serious he really was about the game of poker (see here).

And now there is a very real possibility that I may be eating my words as rumors are swirling about Phelps.  The winner of eight gold medals in the Beijing Olympics, Michael Phelps’ next venture may be to become one of the celebrity players for Doyles Room according to some very recent news.

Supposedly he has been hangin with Doyle Brunson and his son Todd Brunson in Las Vegas recently and he’s been getting plenty of poker tutelage in the process.  Doyle recently said of Phelps, “What a great feeling it must be to be 23 years old and on top of the world.  What a nice kid! He had a bunch of his friends from home with him and they were the guests of the Palms Hotel and Casino.  I got a call that he was an avid poker fan and wanted to meet me, Todd, and Hoyt Corkins.  Jennifer Harman and her husband Marco were also there.”

He added to his praise of the amazing swimmer by saying, “Phelps and some of his friends wanted books so I took Super System 1 and 2 to them and they asked all kinds of poker questions.  Michael said all he wanted to do in life, was to eat, swim and play poker.  We went up to his suite to hang out for a while.  His suite had a basketball court, swimming pool, workout room, multiple bedrooms and bathrooms.  It must have been 15-20 thousand square feet, the nicest one I’ve ever seen.”

Afterwards it’s been rumored that old Doyle encouraged Phelps to check out some of the fine strip clubs that the city of Las Vegas has to offer too.  Judging from pictures that have surfaced on the Internet, Michael took his advice.  All of this has got me thinking that Doyle’s courtship of Michael Phelps may very well have the record-breaking Olympian on his side.