Isle of Man, UK – JUNE 30, 2009: PokerStars the world’s largest online poker site, has announced a new addition to Team PokerStars Pro after signing Marcel ‘The Flying Dutchman’ Luske. The highly experienced Dutch poker pro, who won the European Poker Awards ‘Life Time Achievement Award’ in 2008, has had a long and successful professional poker career, with tournament cashes in virtually every country on the globe.
Luske is widely known in Europe for his distinctive and stylish dress sense, but he is also an incredibly sharp poker player and was ranked the number one poker player in Europe in 2001 and 2003 at the European Poker Awards.
It was not until the 2004 World Series of Poker however that Luske attained worldwide poker stardom, when he came second in a Stud Event and then finished tenth in the WSOP Main Event. With an even-keeled temper and uncanny ability to read his opponents, he continued to excel in 2005 and 2006, earning a coveted championship title at the Bellagio’s Five Star World Poker Classic.
Luske not only has a reputation as one of poker’s most skilled players, he is also one of the sport’s most popular and respected faces. With his friendly personality, gracious demeanour, positive attitude and genuine kindness, he is always a welcomed player in any card room.
During 2007 and 2008, Luske devoted himself to founding the ‘Federation Internationale de Poker Association’ (FIDPA) aiming to standardise the rules of poker. Despite the demands of his new role, he still managed to make two final tables at the 2008 WSOP in Omaha Hi-Lo events. At the ‘European Poker Awards 2008’ at the Aviation Club in Paris, he received the ‘Life Time Achievement Award’.
Today, ’The Flying Dutchman’ has spread his wings to take on a number of projects – in addition to representing PokerStars worldwide. This includes several charity projects, television work and even music recordings. With his debut performance of ’The Poker Song’ at Bluff Magazine’s 2006 WSOP Party, Luske’s childhood dream of becoming a singer ultimately came true and he still regularly performs at poker events and card room grand openings.
Please see PokerStars’ website for more details about Team PokerStars Pro.
About PokerStars:
PokerStars is the world’s largest poker room with over 24 million members worldwide. It’s the premier destination for the world’s top players – with numerous tournaments running every day. PokerStars is renowned for offering the best software and security in the online poker world. PokerStars:
• Is the first online poker room to host over 100,000 real money cash game players simultaneously
• Has dealt over 29 billion hands
• Has run more than 170 million poker tournaments
• Has entered the Guinness Book of World Records for holding the largest online poker tournament – 35,000 players
• Have had over 265,000 simultaneous players, and entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the first and only poker website to reach the 200,000 simultaneous players mark
PokerStars hold the biggest online poker tournament series in the world – The World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP). This is the premier online poker tournament series in the world. Its 6th annual running saw a total of 33 events, comprised of 55,578 entries from 119 countries and a total prize pool of $40 million.
PokerStars is the official sponsor of the: European Poker Tour (www.ept.com), PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, Latin American Poker Tour (www.lapt.com), Asia Pacific Poker Tour (www.appt.com) and The World Cup of Poker.
PokerStars is the home of Team PokerStars Pro, a group of over 30 veteran and up-and-coming players from around the world who play online at PokerStars and are sponsored by the site in international tournaments around the world. For more information please the PokerStars website.