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Within the space of a month the largest online poker room, PokerStars, has signed up two players to its Team PokerStars Pro. Neither of the two are as high profile as the existing members of the team, which include luminaries like Barry Greenstein and Daniel Negreanu; female pros like Vanessa Rousso and Isabelle Mercier; winners of WSOP Main Events in 2003, 2004 and 2005 Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer, and Joe Hachem and Dennis Phillips and Ylon Schwartz of the November Nine.

The latest acquisition is Norwegian Johnny Lodden. Lodden has had a fair number of cashes at the European Poker Tour (EPT) events. These include EPT Budapest and EPT Prague in season 5, during which he played as a PokerStars qualifier. In EPT Season 4 he cashed in EPT Dublin and in the Grand Final at Monte Carlo. Lodden narrowly missed the final table at the WSOP Europe 2008 Main Event. His total tournament earnings are $300K and he was 474th in the 2008 POY rankings. PokerStars describes Lodden’s background as follows – “Hailing from the land of Jorpeland, Norway, Lodden grew up on cards. He played with his family, he played with his friends. In his early years, he honed his competitive spirit on the game Uno.

"Stars is truly a worldwide website. With the launch of their poker mac software in all languages including France, German etc, they are just dominating," said Matt of Compatiblepoker.

By the time he was 15, Lodden was playing poker with his high school friends and taking their money whenever he could.” At the online tables of PokerStars Lodden will play under the moniker “johnnylodden”. He will also represent PokerStars in the live events that the poker room sponsors. Apart from the EPT they include the Asia Pacific Poker Tour, the Latin American Poker Tour, the Russian Poker Tour and the Australia New Zealand Poker Tour.

In February end PokerStars had signed up J.C. Alvarado who plays online poker as “PrtyPsux”. Like Lodden, Alvarado has had modest success in live poker. His live tournament earnings are more than double that of Lodden. However, he finished at 1,137th position in the 2008 POY rankings, far behind Lodden. Alvarado has cashed in the 2006, 2007 and 2008 editions of WSOP. He has cashed in several other tournaments as well. At best he has finished second and this he did in the 2007 World Poker Challenge and the 2007 L.A. Poker Classic. Alvarado is a Mexican who has settled in Las Vegas as a full time professional. This is what PokerStars has to say about him. “Alvarado still holds a great fondness for Mexico and is happy to represent his country. With the kind of wins he’s been putting up in recent years, there is no question he’s repping Mexico well. Now he will be doing it with a Team Pro badge on his arm.”

Kathy Liebert just could not hold on long enough to become the first woman to win a World Poker Tour open tournament. Kathy finished second to Steve Brecher in the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star. Though Kathy won $550,000 she missed her date with history. It was a situation fraught with eeriness because this was the third time in a row that this event almost went to a woman but not quite.

In 2007 J.J. Liu found herself in the heads up with Ted Forrest in the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star event. She actually held the chip advantage with 5.3 million chips to 3.7 million chips. But Forrest converted this to a battle of the sexes and said, “No f****** way I’m letting a woman beat me at a man’s game. I’m Ted Freaking Forrest. Sure, if this was knitting class or some shit like that she might have a chance. But not poker.” After 100 hands Forrest knocked J.J. out. In 2008 Jennifer Harman batted for the women. She entered the final table short stacked but fought valiantly. Ultimately she had to settle for third place. This year it was Kathy’s turn to fall short.

This was Kathy’s sixth WPT final table. Being the leader in the heads up stage she should have made it count. Kathy is tied at Number #5 in the WPT Final Tables list with John Juanda and Scotty Nguyen. Phil Ivey leads with 8 final tables. The others above her are Daniel Negreanu, David Pham and Gus Hansen. This is extremely fine company for the woman pro known as “Poker Kat”.

Kathy has one of her own online poker sites in which she regularly blogs. Even before the Bay 101 event she had written that she needed to get fitter for the grueling WSOP schedule. She wrote, “Stamina will be important at the WSOP with long days, so those that eat healthy, exercise and sleep enough will be at a big advantage.” She is already enjoying fish and salad and other healthy food and has all but kicked the junk food habit. Kathy has performed better at WSOP than at WPT. She has won a bracelet in the $1,500 Limit Hold’em Shootout in 2004. So egged on by her recent successes and her fitness drive one can expect good things from her at WSOP 2009.

Whenever the news veers around the Poker Kat two things immediately come to mind. She financed her first poker bankroll from the money she made on the stock market. The current financial downturn not withstanding she is still probably making more money at the bourses than at the tables. The second thing is that she was one of the first and main crusaders for no smoking at the tables, and if the poker rooms are healthier today then a large share of the credit goes to her.