When PokerStars adds new pros to its team, it often does so with great fanfare. At the very least, it makes an announcement on its website. But when pros leave or are dropped, nary a peep can be heard. Such is the case with the latest players to remove their PokerStars patches: Julian Thew and Darus Suharto.
It took members of the poker community to notice that both players were no longer listed on PokerStars’ website, as the poker room never made mention of it. Thew is not well known in the United States, but he is over in the United Kingdom. The Nottingham resident ranks 16th on the Great Britain and Ireland all-time live tournament money list according to the Hendon Mob, having won just over $2.5 million lifetime. That puts him ahead of such names as Joe Beevers, Praz Bansi, Harry Demetriou, Mansour Matloubi, Peter Costa, and Ross Boatman. He ranks 43rd on the European money list.
From 2001 through 2006, Thew grinded out a nice living on the tournament circuit, including a number of five-figure scores such as an $89,750 cash in the Main Event of the Grosvenor Grand Challenge in early 2005, but it wasn’t until 2007 that he really broke through.
In September 2007, Thew won the Plymouth stop of the Grosvenor U.K. Poker Tour for his first six-figure payday of $119,984. The next month, he won the European Poker Tour’s Baden Classic and $947,806. He followed that up in January with another Grosvenor U.K. Poker Tour win, this time in Brighton. He has had many cashes since, although none at the World Series of Poker (WSOP).
PokerStars signed Thew almost exactly a year ago, so one could infer that he had a one-year deal that expired, with one or both sides deciding not to renew it.
Suharto is a talented player in his own right, but does not have nearly the prolific record of a pro like Thew. Hailing from Toronto, Suharto made the final table of the WSOP Main Event in 2008 and placed sixth in the tournament, winning over $2.4 million. The rest of his live cashes add up to less than $100,000.
This news comes less than three weeks after the departure of one of PokerStars’ great mainstays, 2004 WSOP Main Event champion Greg Raymer. “Fossilman” has yet to explain why he and PokerStars parted ways, although on his website he wrote that he will have “a more detailed statement discussing this situation” in the future. Read more.
Longtime poker pro Kathy Liebert offered up her own reasons for the PokerStars/Raymer split, Tweeting, “I heard that PokerStars was cutting many of their Team Pros’ compensation. Take it or leave it. Greg Raymer left it.”
Liebert added, “I think it’s a bad business decision to cut their pay, but most won’t have a better offer, so they stay.”
On the flip side, PokerStars has brought 2010 WSOP Main Event champ Jonathan Duhamel, high-stakes wonder Viktor “Isildur1” Blom, Vanessa Selbst, and former Bodog pro David Williams into the fold in the past year.
The largest poker room on the internet also recently announced its PokerStars Team Online class of 2011. The 15 new sponsored pros were selected from a mass of 4,500 applicants and represent 11 different countries. Among the newcomers are popular player/blogger Shane “shaniac” Scheleger, Mer “PeachyMer” Brit, and the former record-holder for the most hands – 40,088 – played in one day, Mikhail “innerspy” Shalamov.
