PokerStars.com, known to be the world’s biggest online poker room, announced on Wednesday that poker players Yaxi Zhu from China and Chen-An Lin from Taiwan are to join the brand’s roster of Asian Team PokerStars Pros.
Being PokerStars sponsored players, both Lin and Zhu will help to further popularize the game of poker as one involving skill and strategy across Asia. The continent is gradually becoming one of the biggest emerging poker destinations in the world.
As the largest and most popular online card room, PokerStars had a major contribution to the growth of both live and online poker in the United States at first and in Western Europe subsequently. The game was most recently promoted quite actively in Latin America and Eastern Europe. PokerStars relies heavily on popular local players to attract new fans around the globe and to help those learn the game by playing against their favorite pros.
As mentioned above, Zhu and Lin are joining the elite company of Asian Team PokerStars Pros, with Celina Lin, Aditya Agarwal, Naoya Kihara, and Bryan Huang already being among those.
Taiwan-born player Chen-An Lin started playing poker back in 2009. Since then he has been spotted at the tables of a number of APPT and Macau Poker Cup tournaments, making final table appearances or even emerging victorious in those.
Lin has collected a total of $216,571 in live tournament earnings since the beginning of his career. He captured his best live cash of HK$380,700 ($49,118) back in August 2014 for topping the field of a Macau Poker Cup HK$20,000 No-Limit Hold’em event.
As for female poker pro Yaxi Zhu, she began gaining more popularity in February 2014 when she triumphed in an Asia Championship of Poker No-Limit Hold’em event. In December 2014, she topped the field of the EPT Season 11 Prague €2,200 No-Limit Hold’em for her best live payout of €119,100 ($147,980).
Most recently, the young Chinese cashed in the EPT Season 12 Barcelona €5,300 Main Event. There, she finished 115th to scoop €13,475 ($15,338) of the entire prize pool. Zhu’s live tournament winnings currently amount to $252,280.
Having proved themselves to be skillful players, both Zhu and Lin are considered excellent additions to the PokerStars’ team of poker ambassadors.
