PokerStars Parts Ways with Team Pros Joe Cada, Marcel Luske, and Alex Kravchenko
The exodus of players from the Team PokerStars Pro roster continues. A month after PokerStars severed ties with Latin American players Humberto Brenes, Angel Guillen, and Jose “Nacho” Barbero, the world’s leading online poker room has parted ways with Joe Cada, Marcel Luske, and Alex Kravchenko.
“PokerStars and I went our separate ways,” Cada told ESPN’s Andrew Feldman via social media. He later followed that up with another tweet: “If everyone is wondering what happened with PokerStars and myself, it’s pretty simple. I asked for 100% rake back, they said no.”
Cada won the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event for $8,546,435 and signed on as a Team PokerStars Pro shortly thereafter. In June of this year, Cada became the first player since Carlos Mortensen to win a second WSOP gold bracelet after winning the Main Event. Cada did so by winning Event #32 $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed for $670,041.
Cada’s profile has been removed from the Team PokerStars page, as have those of Luske and Kravchenko. Luske, affectionately known as “The Flying Dutchman,” is the Netherlands' all-time money winner with $4,381,937 in career winnings dating back to 1999. In a four-month period from December 2012 to April 2013, Luske won five tournaments in PokerStars-sponsored events, including a win in the European Poker Tour Berlin €1,000 Eight-Handed Pot-Limit Omaha event for €32,000.
As for Kravchenko, the Russian rose to prominence at the 2007 WSOP when he won his first gold bracelet in the $1,500 Omaha Hi/Lo Split 8-or-Better for $228,446, and then followed that up with a fourth-place finish in the Main Event for $1,852,721.
“About PokerStars, can only say [it was] good, but everything good comes to an end,” Kravchenko said of his departure in a translated tweet.
When reached for comment by PokerNews, PokerStars offered the following: “PokerStars can confirm that Joe Cada, Marcel Luske and Alex Kravchenko are no longer members of Team PokerStars Pro. We wish them all well in their future endeavors.”
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