After failing to sign the much sought after World Series of Poker Main Event Champion for the past two years, PokerStars was able to acquire not only the 2008 winner, but the main even runner-up as well. Peter Eastgate, 2008 WSOP Main Event winner, and Ivan Demidov, 2nd place finisher in the event, were announced on Thursday as official members of Team PokerStars. They seems to be a perfect fit to a team that already includes 2008 main event 3rd and 4th place finishers, Dennis Phillips and Ylon Schwartz.
Eastgate is a 23 year old professional poker player from Denmark. With his WSOP Main Event win last summer, he became the youngest player ever to win the coveted tournament at just 22 years of age. Six months after his prestigious win, Eastgate scored another significant victory when he took down the $5,000 NL Hold’em event during the 2009 PokerStars Carribean Adventure. He’s currently featured on GSN’s High Stakes Poker television show playing for extremely large amounts of cash against some of the world’s best players.
The Russian born Demidov is a 27 year old professional who has the distinction of being the only player to final table both the WSOP Main Event as well as the WSOP Europe Main Event. He accomplished this feat in the same year while taking impressive 2nd and 3rd place finishes in the events.
Eastgate’s addition to the team makes him the 4th main event champion officially on Team PokerStars, along with Chris MoneyMaker (2003), Greg Raymer (2004), and Joe Hachem (2005). The 1983 champion, Tom McEvoy, was also an official member of the team, now just a friend of the site. Both Eastgate and Demidov can now be found playing on PokerStars under their handles: “PeteEastgate†and “Ivan Demidovâ€.