3 barrels of pure value from the halls of PokerStars Towers including a fond farewell from Eugene Katchalov, the release of the Daniel Negreanu documentary on Netflix, and Liv Boeree to star on Pokerography.
The light has died on Team PokerStars Ukraine after Eugene Katchalov left after five years with the team. As always it was left to the player to break the news. Katchalov posted a Tweet explaining that both he and PokerStars would part ways on June 1.
Katchalov joined PokerStars in March 2011 after making a few waves both live and online. He won a World Championships of Online Poker (WCOOP) bracelet playing under the pseudonym of MyRabbiFoo. He won one of the largest cash prizes in World Poker Tour (WPT) history by taking down the $2.4m first prize in the Season VI WPT Doyle Brunson Classic, and $1.5m after taking down the $100,500 Super High Roller (SHR) event at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA).
Speaking to PokerStars Head of Blogging, Brad Willis, at the time of his christening, Katchalov said he hoped to ‘grow further as a recognised poker player.’ He certainly achieved that. He currently has over $8.6m in live tournament earnings and represents the LA Sunset in the Global Poker League (GPL).
Katchalov said he was proud to have helped poker grow in Ukraine during his time with PokerStars and wants to try and use what he has learned in poker to try and ‘improve and grow the game from the business side.’
I wish him all the very best.
KidPoker Documentary Launches on Netflix
When Katchalov won that PCA SHR, he beat Daniel Negreanu in heads-up action.
This week, the figurehead of PokerStars sees his documentary KidPoker go on general release on Netflix in the UK, Ireland, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
The feature-length documentary is a PokerStars Original Films special and runs for approx. 90-minutes. It chronicles the life and career of Negreanu and features commentary from the likes of Maria Ho, Vanessa Selbst, Antonio Esfandiari, John Duthie, and Phil Ivey. His brother, Mike also plays a pivotal role in the documentary.
I was fortunate enough to get an advanced copy, and you can read my review right here.
Liv Boeree to Feature on Poker Central’s Pokerography
Another PokerStars Team Pro, who is going to have a camera thrust in her general direction, is Liv Boeree.
The Raising for Effective Giving (REG) founder and Global Poker Index (GPI) European Female Poker Player of the Year will star in a future episode of the Poker Central documentary Pokerography.
Although there are some within poker, who thought Boeree was going to have something other than a camera thrust in her face and was quite looking forward to it.
@Liv_Boeree @PokerCentral OH MY GOSH, I THOUGHT AT FIRST U SAID PORNOGRAPHY. I was about to place my order:-)
— Doyle Brunson (@TexDolly) May 30, 2016
Boeree will be the third PokerStars Team Pro to be covered by the Poker Central documentary team following Jason Somerville and Vanessa Selbst. PokerStars Team Pro Chris Moneymaker is also scheduled to have his life story shared with the world in a future episode.
