In the past week, the following pros have been cut from Stars and Ultimate:

Humberto Brenes (Stars)
Nacho Barbera (Stars)
Angel Guillen (Stars)
William Reynolds (UP)
Jeremy Ausmus (UP)
Phil Collins (UP)
Bret Hanks (UP)

http://f5poker.com/poker-news/2014/8...lapt-champion/

From the sound of things, this may just be the first wave of cuts for Stars. Maybe they no longer see the point of keeping such a large stable. Guys like Jason Somerville and Negreanu add extra value because they put in work to promote their sites. For guys that just wear the patch and show up to tournaments, even very "famous" ones, will that be enough going forward?

I don't cut myself, I play tournaments...

Pierre Neuville, Pokerstars

Looks like the charrrrrk is sunk.

To be fair a decent amount of this probably has to do with how these pros promoted themselves as well as their sponsors. Humberto is the only pro on that list with any amount of cross-over appeal.

The Team Pro/Online roster has been too big for a while imo. Most of the guys on the team serve no unique purpose, so I'd wondered for a while if they were just a pointless drain on Stars' resources.
This is kind of bad news for the poker industry, as it seems to show that accountants are now firmly in charge. Amaya will likely continue to "streamline" the business. Gotta keep those short-term profits ticking over. :/

I wouldn't be surprised if the Pokerstars blog team is cut back too. (Which I'd personally regret as I'm a big fan of the articles).

By the way, I don't know if it's confirmed that the aforementioned UP guys are off the team, but they're no longer listed on the website.

If I'm honest, I think it's past time that professional players should be the core of a site's marketing push. Most players with a patch add nothing to the experience, and have very limited interaction with most players. The ones that are beneficial for sites will be the ones that are kept on, and they are going to have cross market appeal. Patched players such as Nadal, Ronaldo and Vicky Coren-Mitchell are where I see the market going. Vicky may have a lot of experience, but it's her fan base and the way she supports the brand that makes her valuable.
Having a "pro" player as a sponsored player adds very little to a site's marketing push. The only people who know who they are already play the game. They do not bring you extra players. Some, like Ike Haxton, add value b the way they talk to players, and they way they interact through Twitter and other mediums.
If I was a sponsored player for PokerStars right now, I'd be trying to improve my Social Media footprint, and interacting with as many of the site's customers in a positive way as possible. But it may already be too late, just look at Dale Philip, great social media presence but that didn't save him following his incident.
By the way, I don't necessarily see this as bad for the game. Wasted marketing budget really doesn't help anyone. I think this has been coming for a while, and it's probably too early to see an impact from the Amaya purchase just yet.

Previous posters are correct. Apart from me not even knowing most of these names I think the large stable of sponsored pros is still a remnant from the era when they had to hold their own against FTP with their many "name" players. Today, PS dominates the market and having many sponsored players is -EV for them.

What the hell has Humberto accomplished in the last 5+ years? He was a solid player back when everyone was terrible. The game has passed him by and he wasn't able to adapt. He needs to learn from Eric Siedel how to keep up with the changing dynamics of the game.

I'm glad zero percent of my rake money now goes to Nacho Barbero.

Thoroughly unlikeable man.

Far rather they cut another dozen of Team Pokerstars than chopped a single member of the blog team.

Pokerstarsblog is excellent.

Humberto cashed 10 times in this year's WSOP. The most of anyone. But no deep runs.

Really there's a strong argument to slash Team Pokerstars to 10 or 12 players.

Only the ones with crossover appeal probably bring anything tangible to the site.

Every single poker player who is legally allowed to have an online poker account must have one by now (or at least knows all about the site and has made a decision to have an account or not), so middle of the road pro poker players bring next to nothing to the table.

Moneymaker, Selbst, Elky, Coren, Negreanu. Possibly Mercier and Greenstein. The current WSOP champion if they can sign him/her.

Can't see much of an argument for many more.

The sports stars are a MUCH better spend of the marketing money than Cada, Ramdin, Jorgensen and the rest IMO.

Besides Humberto none of those players appeal to the general public anyways...stars/ftp will slash many more. Does anybody have any idea what types of deals/comps guys like Phil Collins and William Reynolds were getting? Surely they weren't getting free BI's to $10k's? Was it just free rakeback and some bonuses here and there?

Humberto is a big name when you look strictly at the pool of players who've come from Latin America. Costa Rica, especially, is a decently big poker market too and Humberto is the most well-known Costa Rican in poker.

People are often forgetting how large the south american market is for poker and much of the region has not been full exposed to it commercially yet, just the rich-rich able to play most of the games over seas. There are a bunch of spanish/portugese speaking guy laliberte's there that would be great for the game.

I have to agree that these cuts are long overdue for Pstars. Without some cross-over appeal patched Pros for Stars offer very little value. And tbh the vast majority of them don't even do a decent job at Live Events to increase the "experience" value to rec players.

I've said for some time that Team Online is basically nothing more then a carrot on a stick in front of the horse. The concept doesn't bring much value to Stars from that single player. Where the value comes from is players see a mediocre grinder who has a blog and gets signed and for every 1 sponsored player there are 100 doing the same thing in the hopes that they too get signed. The member of Team Online should expect a short life expectancy since his "fanbase" social media fan base will either jump at Pstars or they won't upon him being signed. Hence his value has already being spent the first day of him being signed.
In closing Team Online is very much like a rake chase type promo.

As for UP making so many cuts it seems with their new marketing manager they are trying to go in a different direction. I think they'd be much better off signing some UFC fighters who reside in NV and NJ to help attract more MMA fans to the site. This would get 2 players for every one. As rec players (MMA fans) take the plunge the more experienced players will migrate to the site to enjoy the softer games.

good... players should have 100% of themselves.

Team Online is a complete farce with the possible exception of guys like Kanu7 and Isildur who have worked their way through the stakes and are aspirational figures for online grinders.

should get rid of 95%. poker players do not draw people to poker, use the extra cash to have sports stars and famous faces attract people that have not played poker online or are new to the game. if negraunu is really on $1m per month then he should be thrown to the side in favour of someone non poker players would actually recognise.

He'd certainly pwn u grants pass boy

This is what they call a "quick win" in corporate cost cutting land

Dnegs gets about 2-3 mil a year