World’s largest poker online portal, PokerStars had announced that 2008 WSOP winner, Peter Eastgate, and runner up Ivan Demidov are the newest members of Team PokerStars Pro. The arrival of Danish Eastgate and Russian Demidov bolsters the non-US presence of the site. The two will join the November Nine members, Ylon Schwartz and Dennis Phillips.

The PokerStars blog have revealed that the signings have been in works for a while. It says, “Ever since you saw the two sit down face-to-face for the epic World Series battle, you somehow knew they would end up in the elite Team Pro stable. It was just a matter of when it would happen.” Eastgate had won $9.1 million from the WSOP main event.

On the other hand, Demidov became the third player to reach the final tables of both the WSOP and WSOP Europe Main Events, and taking third place in the latter for £334,850. His second place finish in the Main Event won him $5.8 million. If that introduction is not enough, Demidov is a math whiz, which could explain his success at poker felts. Viewers could catch Demidov playing on PokerStars under the name ‘Ivan Demidov’.

The team that represents Team PokerStars Pro at major live events, and is closely involved in online promotions is headed by the trio, Chris Moneymaker (2003), Greg Raymer (2004), and Joe Hachem (2005). Other members of Team PokerStars Pro include Barry Greenstein, Isabelle Mercier, Daniel Negreanu, John Duthie, Lee Nelson, Steven Paul-Ambrose, Victor Ramdin, Luca Pagano, Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier, Johnny Lodden, J.C. Alvarado, and Humberto Brenes. Apart from male players, Team PokerStars Pro also has some of the best women players in the league such as Go Daddy Girl Vanessa Rousso, Victoria Coren, Katja Thater, and Maridu Mayrinck.

At the moment, PokerStars is at the midst of SCOOP (Spring Championship of Online Poker) that features events with low-stakes, mid-stakes, and high-stakes buy-ins. In the first event, a No Limit Hold'em Six-Max with Rebuys tournament, the low-stakes contest featured a guaranteed prize pool of $500,000, and it attracted more than 27,000 players, making it one of the largest online poker tournaments ever held. Further, the mid-stakes $55 buy-in version saw a field of 4,057 players, while the $550 buy-in high-stakes edition drew as much as 672 players from world over. In the second event, which is a Pot Limit Omaha High-Low tournament, 7,622 players competed for the low-stakes, 2,104 showed up for the mid-stakes, and 327 for the high-stakes. SCOOP ends with its Main Event on April 12th.