Team PokerStars Grows by Two

PokerStars announced this week that it had snatched up two of the few remaining well known players to become part of team of pros.  Joining the list of pros that includes the likes of Greg Raymer, Joe Hachem, Isabelle Mercier, Barry Greenstein, and Daniel Negreanu are Gavin Griffin and Chad Brown.

Griffin is one of the young guard, but unlike many of the 20-something crowd, he has made quite a name for himself on the live tournament circuit.  At only 26 years of age, he has already amassed almost $4.4 million in live tournament winnings in his career.  It all started in 2004, when he became the youngest player in World Series of Poker history to win a bracelet (then 22-years old) when he took down the $3,000 Pot-Limit Hold’em title.  His biggest cash was barely over a year ago, when he won $2,391,895 by winning the European Poker Tour Grand Final.  Most recently, this January he won the WPT Borgata Winter Open, becoming the first person to win a WSOP, WPT, and EPT title.

Brown, 46, has yet to win a major tournament, but he does have multiple top-three finishes in WSOP events and has won preliminary events on the World Poker Tour and at the Bellagio Five Diamond World Poker Classic.  Brown came oh-so-close to a major title when he came in second at the 2007 National Heads-Up Poker Championship.  His face is known to many televised poker fans, as he was the host of the Ultimate Poker Challenge.  Chad Brown’s girlfriend, Vanessa Rousso, is also a member of Team PokerStars.