Which online poker site has the best sponsored pros?

You would think it would be a two horse race between PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker when it comes to which online poker site has the best stable of sponsored poker players, but there is a third and fourth site that are doing a good job of staying competitive with the two online poker giants. The other two sites I’m talking about are UB Poker -formerly Ultimate Bet– and Doyles Room.

So, let’s take a look at the sponsored pros from each of these online poker rooms and see which site truly has the best lineup. For the purposes of this argument I’m going to separate the main, advertised players, from the 100’s of players Stars and Full Tilt sponsor in some way, shape or form.

PokerStars

• Headliners: Daniel Negreanu, Chris Moneymaker, Joe Hachem, Vanessa Rousso, Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grosspellier, Greg Raymer, Joe Cada, David Williams, Vannessa Selbst, Barry Greenstein, Jason Mercier, and Lex Veldhuis.
• Secondary Pros: Dario Minieri, Humberto Brenes, Ivan Demidov, Andre Akkari, Chad Brown, Luca Pagano, Noah Boeken, Victoria Coren, Alexander Kravchenko, Alexandre Gomes, Dennis Phillips, John Duthie, Johnny Lodden, Leo Fernandez, Marcin Horecki, Maridu Mayrinck, Tom McEvoy, Hevad Khan, Victor Ramdin, Nuno Coelho, Anton Allemann, Johannes Steindl, Lee Nelson, Tony Hachem, Marcel Luske, Pieter De Korver, Simone Ruggeri, Juan Manuel Pastor, Per Paolo Fabretti, Veronica Dabul, Angel Guillen, Gualtier Salles, Jose Ignacio Barbero, Joep Van Den Bijgaart, Ruben Visser, Rino Mathis, Jude Ainsworth, JP Kelly, Vadin Markushevski, Richard Toth, Arnaud Mattern, Christopher De Muelder, Matthias De Muelder, Thomas Bichon, Julian Thew, Darus Suharto, Martin Hruby, Anh Van Nguyen, Greg Debora, Marcello Del Grosso, Pat Pezzin, Bryan Huang, Celina Lin, Raymond Wu, Tae Joon Noh, Thierry Van Den Berg, and Ville Wahlbeck.

When it comes to their main sponsored players PokerStars obviously puts a major focus on World Series of Poker winners, going for star-power over poker ability -which has obviously worked for the site in terms of marketing! Their secondary pros are all excellent players, but here Stars focus shifts away from household names and more towards a well-rounded player with regional appeal.

Full Tilt Poker

• Headliners: Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson, John Juanda, Jennifer Harman, Phil Gordon, Erick Lindgren, Erik Seidel, Andy Bloch, Mike Matusow, Gus Hansen, Allen Cunningham, Patrik Antonius, and Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan.
• Secondary Pros: Brandon Adams, James Akenhead, Billy ‘The Croc’ Argyros, Josh Arieh, Amanda ‘Mandy B’ Baker, Praz Bansi, Joao Barbosa, Aaron Bartley, Steven Begleiter, David Benyamine, Thomas Bihl, Sascha Biorac, Andy Black, Farzad Bonyadi, Brad Booth, Alan Boston, David Bradley, Steve Brecher, Richard Brodie, Erik Cajelais, John Cernuto, Lynette Chan, David Chiu, Scott Clements, Artie Cobb, David Colclough, Diego Cordovez, John D’Agostino, Roland de Wolfe, Ryan Dreyer, Bill Edler, Trond Eidsvig, Eli Elezra, Nikolay Evdakov, Andrew Feldman, Peter ‘Nordberg’ Feldman, Scott Fischman, Perry Friedman, Eric Froehlich, Rafe Furst, Julian Gardner, Bill Gazes, Kristy Gazes, Markus Golser, Michael Gracz, David Grey, Svetlana Gromenkova, Jared ‘TheWacoKidd’ Hamby, Matt Hawrilenko, Rob Hollink, Soraya Homam, Alessio Isaia, Niki ‘KaiBuxxe’ Jedlicka, Chip Jett, Karina Jett, Berry Johnston, Marc Karam, Jonathan Karamalikis, Kelly Kim, Martin Kläser, Christiane Klecz, Erich Kollmann, Søren Kongsgaard, Christian Kruel, Markus Lehmann, Alfredo ‘Toto’ Leonidas, Andrew ‘LuckyChewy’ Lichtenberger, Marco Liesy, Hal Lubarsky, Vitaly Lunkin, Jeff Madsen, Mihai Manole, Craig Marquis, Greg Mascio, Daniele Mazzia, Dag Mikkelsen, Scott Montgomery, Jordan ‘iMsoLucky0′ Morgan, Carlos ‘The Matador’ Mortensen, Greg Mueller, Adam Noone, Annette ‘Annette_15′ Obrestad, Raul Oliveira, David Oppenheim, Raul Paez, Stuart Paterson, Pascal Perrault, David Pham, John Phan, Caio Pimenta, Leandro ‘Brasa’ Pimentel, Vivek Rajkumar, Stefan Rapp, Claudio Rinaldi, Ben Roberts, Roberto Romanello, Esther Rossi, Damian Salas, Ali Sarkeshik, Eddy Scharf, Erica Schoenberg, Adam Schoenfeld, Nick Schulman, Alexander Schwab, Huckleberry Seed, Keith Sexton, Matt Sexton, Paul Sexton, Beth Shak, Bruno Stefanelli, Johan Storakers, David Singer, Gavin Smith, Justin ‘Boosted J’ Smith, Cole South, Roland Specht, Sigi Stockinger, Frank Thompson, Kenny Tran, Marco Traniello, Michael Tureniec, Jon ‘PearlJammed’ Turner, José Luis Velador, Jani Vilmunen, Cyndy Violette, Jens Voertmann, Hans Martin Vogl, Mark Vos, Lee Watkinson, Robert Williamson III, Roy ‘The Oracle’ Winston, Paul Wolfe, Christoph Wolters, Steve Wong, Steve Yea, Steve Zolotow, and Flavio Ferrari Zumbini.

Ok, now that that’s over with! Full Tilt Poker’s headliners are perhaps the biggest names in the poker industry outside of Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Johnny Chan and Doyle Brunson. And to go along with their top-tier talent they have assembled an immense number of Poker Pros, some of whom -Annette Obrestad, Carlos Mortensen, Huck Seed,and Justin Smith to name a few-would headline other sites.

Doyles Room

• Headliners: Doyle Brunson, Todd Brunson, Mike Caro, Hoy Corkins, TJ Cloutier, Dewey Tomko, Tom Franklin, Minh Ly, and Billy Baxter.
• Brunson 10: Steve “gboro780″ Gross, Zachary “Crazy Zachary” Clark, Dani “Ansky” Stern, Amit “amak316″ Makhija, Chris “Moorman1″ Moorman and Alex “AJKHoosier1″ Kamberis, Dan “djk123″ Kelly, and David Doc Sands” Sands.

The big name players may all be a bit long in tooth -probably an understatement when Minh Ly, Todd Brunson and Hoyt Corkins represent your young demographic!-but this is more than made up for with the addition of the Brunson 10; a group now consisting of eight young online Poker Pros who pretty much have pwned any online Player of the Year award over the last few years.

UB Poker

• Headliners: Phil Hellmuth, Annie Duke, Joe Sebok, Liv Boeree, and Tiffany Michelle.
• Secondary Pros: Adam “Roothlus” Levy, “Hollywood” Dave Stann, Brandon Cantu, Billy Kopp, Bryan Devonshire, Gary “Debo34″ Debernardi, Eric Baldwin, Matt Graham, Michael Binger, and Mark “Poker Ho” Kroon.

UB has been doing a good job adding talent as of late -for years they completely relied on Hellmuth and Duke-and while they aren’t in the same ballpark as Full Tilt and PokerStars, they are at least staying competitive.