Yes, you read correctly, a Finnish poker player is set to take a trip with Virgin Galactic.
Online poker has grown in leaps and bounds in the past decade or so, but we bet none of you expected it would ever made it to its latest destination - a trip into space on a commercial sub-orbital trip.
Poker in space
Online poker pro Jens "Jeans89" Kyllonen is about to become the first of his kind to make it into space, when he takes off on a commercial sub-orbital tourist trip being planned by Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic. The trip doesn't have a date yet, but it is expected to happen at some stage in 2014.
The 23-year-old Finn paid $200,000 for the two-and-a-half hour ticket, which is small change considering he won $2.5 million playing high-stakes poker last year. His chequered career has already seen him named Internet Player of the Year 2012 at the European Poker Awards, but that is nothing compared to the three-day training he'll do to prepare himself for space.
Space Station tournament
There hasn't been a poker tournament in space - yet. But just for fun, we're predicting that we will eventually see online poker played at the International Space Station or somewhere else outside of planet Earth.
Poker players and astronauts are both known for their adventurous spirit and ambition, so it is no surprise to see Kyllonen taking off with Branson. We're sure he won't be the last online poker player to venture into space, and who knows - the International Space Station poker tournament may be just around the corner.
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