This week marks the second installment of Team Pro Tuesdays on PokerStars, the world’s largest online poker site. Every Tuesday through December 29th, PokerStars sponsored pros will be hitting the virtual felts in earnest.
Team PokerStars Pro includes the reigning champion of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event, Joe Cada, who became the youngest winner ever of the $10,000 buy-in tournament in November. Cada shattered fellow Team PokerStars Pro member Peter Eastgate’s standing record by a full year, as the site boasts the last two WSOP Main Event champions. Chris Moneymaker, widely considered to be the man responsible for starting the modern poker boom, is also a card-carrying member of Team PokerStars Pro. Moneymaker took down the feature tournament in 2003 as a little-known accountant from Tennessee, defeating established pro Sammy Farha heads-up.
In 2004, Greg Raymer became poker’s newest star and Aussie Joe Hachem followed in 2005. Both are now sponsored by PokerStars and are benevolent ambassadors for the game. Text found on PokerStars’ website explains what players can expect as part of Team Pro Tuesdays: “On this day every week, scores of our pro players will be logging on and playing at the tables, covering everything from cash games to tournaments across a wide range of games and buy-in levels. You’ll be able to watch your favorite players in action and talk to them from the rail.”
PokerStars pros will take to the felts during two separate time blocks each Tuesday, from 12:00 to 15:00 ET and again from 19:00 to 22:00 ET. In order to figure out which pros are online, visit the “Team Pro” link at the bottom of the PokerStars lobby. You can also click “Requests” on the top menu bar and then hit “Find a Team PokerStars Player.” The concept of playing with the pros is similar to the main marketing message of rival online poker site Full Tilt, whose stable of players includes Howard Lederer, Gus Hansen, and Tom “durrrr” Dwan, the newest member of the team.
In addition to being able to play with pros in cash games, PokerStars is running a pair of Outlast the Pro tournaments. The first installment takes place at 13:00 ET on Tuesdays, while the second running issues its “Shuffle up and deal” command at 20:00 ET. Each tournament has a buy-in of $11 along with $1,000 in cash added to the prize pool. Players who remain in each tournament longer than every single one of the pros in the field will divvy up the $1,000 in added funds. For example, if Cada were the last pro standing and knocked out in 83rd place, the remaining players would each pocket $12.20, or $1,000 split 82 ways. The Outlast the Pro tournaments can be found by visiting “Tourney” and then “All” in the PokerStars lobby.
Other members of Team PokerStars Pro include “PokerStars.net Million Dollar Challenge” front man Daniel Negreanu, Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier, and Humberto Brenes. Its roster also includes top female pros like GoDaddy Girl Vanessa Rousso, Vicky Coren, Barry Greenstein, Chad Brown, Gavin Griffin, and Maridu Mayrinck, who was featured in this year’s WSOP Main Event coverage on cable station ESPN.
According to PokerScout.com, which keeps tabs on online poker room traffic, PokerStars is the largest site worldwide with a seven-day running average of 28,600 real money ring game players. During its peak hours, well over 40,000 cash game aficionados call the site home. It happily accepts customers from the United States.
