Greg Raymer May Be Leaving PokerStars
On Monday, a Tweet from poker pro Kathy Liebert hinted at changes from PokerStars, the world’s largest online poker site: “I heard that PokerStars was cutting many of their Team Pros’ compensation. Take it or leave it. Greg Raymer left it.” She followed up her rumor by asserting, “I think it’s a bad business decision to cut their pay, but most won’t have a better offer, so they stay.”
Raymer won the 2004 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event over former PokerStars colleague and reigning World Poker Tour Championship winner David Williams, cashing for $5 million. He added to his legacy by popularizing his “Fossilman” sunglasses and being actively involved with the Poker Players Alliance, the poker industry’s primary lobbying voice. He also finished third in the $40,000 No Limit Hold’em event during the 2009 WSOP for $775,000.
Over on TwoPlusTwo, a conversation between Raymer and PokerStars pro Pat Pezzin that occurred at a PokerStars table appeared. In it, Pezzin asked the 2004 Main Event champ, “Why don’t you have red star by your name?” Raymer responded, “Long story, call me if you’d like.” Raymer’s likeness no longer appears on PokerStars’ website and he would become the second former Main Event champ to leave the room in the last two years after Peter Eastgate abruptly retired last July.
TwoPlusTwo posters quickly weighed in on Raymer’s apparent separation from PokerStars. One member wondered whether “Fossilman” would pop up at another online poker site in the near future: “Wow that’s pretty surprising. Raymer is probably one of their top 5 pros and probably the best spoken of all of them. Should be interesting to see if someone else sweeps in to grab him.” Another member added, “Out of the first 5 champions of the boom era, not only is Greg clearly the best, he’s the only one you could accurately call a real poker player. He wasn’t world class and he wasn’t a full-time pro, but he was definitely a poker player.”
Longtime online poker player Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy, who is a former sponsored pro of Ultimate Bet, gave his two cents on TwoPlusTwo: “I think it is pretty simple. I don’t think it is anything personal against Greg, as he has been a very good ambassador. PokerStars has already saturated the USA and they feel there are better places to put their marketing $ to work.” A request for comment from Raymer sent by Poker News Daily was not returned at press time. PokerStars has also not commented on the news.
Team PokerStars Pro has added 2010 WSOP Main Event champion Jonathan Duhamel and high-stakes online poker pro Viktor “Isildur1” Blom in recent months. Last year during the WSOP Main Event November Nine weekend in Las Vegas, PokerStars announced the signings of Williams and North American Poker Tour Mohegan Sun Main Event champ Vanessa Selbst.
Five former Main Event winners – Tom McEvoy (1983), Chris Moneymaker (2003), Joe Hachem (2005), Joe Cada (2009), and Duhamel (2010) – remain on PokerStars’ roster. Other members of its team include Jason Mercier, Barry Greenstein, Dennis Phillips, and Daniel Negreanu.
Regardless of the reason for Raymer’s departure, one TwoPlusTwo member perhaps summed up the sentiments of the online poker community the best: “A great player and ambassador for the game. I can’t remember another playing doing as many interviews and stuff during the year he was champion. Pokerstars’ loss.”
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Posted by Senior Editor on Feb 1 2011. Filed under Gossip, Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
