PokerStars has added a pair of new faces to their Team Pro ranks – Bjorn “Bjoerni89” Schneider and Martin “filfedra” Staszko. Both men hail from the center of the European continent, putting them in excellent poker company.
Staszko, a 35 year-old from the Czech Republic town of Třinec, will be recognized by loyal viewers of the 2011 WSOP telecasts on ESPN. He finished second in this year’s Main Event, dropping to champion Pius Heinz. Still, Staszko’s runner up berth was good enough to net him $5,433,086, as well as his new PokerStars patronage.
Before turning to poker professionally, he worked in a manufacturing facility for automobiles. Though he prefers a live game, he states that the convenience of playing online often wins out over the thrill of face to face battle. His online earnings over the last few years total to somewhere in the neighborhood of $200,000 in US currency.
The second new member of PokerStars Team Pro is the aforementioned Bjorn Schneider, a German who specializes in sit & go tournaments. His meteoric rise, says iGaming Business, has drawn considerable attention within the online poker community:
“Soon after starting his poker journey,” reads their brief summary, “the now 22-year-old had progressed to games of six-max sit-and-go while he began playing in $100 heads-up contests earlier this year before moving up to $5,000 tournaments and even going head-to-head with Team PokerStars Pro Viktor ‘Isildur1′ Blom.”
The young man is also proficient in standard style tournaments, with one fourth-place $50,000 win in an edition of PokerStars’ Sunday Warmup. Also known as a popular player in World of Warcraft and Starcraft circles, Schneider spends a considerable amount of time in the online realm.