Twitch Poker celebrity and PokerStars Team Pro Lex Veldhuis will be hosting his first-ever live tournament series “Lex Live Spring Festival“ at the Grand Casino de Namur in Belgium. The series will be sponsored by PokerStars.

Taking place from March 27 to 31, the inaugural Lex Live will host half a dozen of low buy-in tournaments ranging from €60- €550, including a €225 buy-in Main Event boasting €100,000 guarantee.

A wide range of formats will be featured during the series including turbos, hyper turbos, PLO, as well as a High Roller event.

PokerStars will also be hosting online satellites to help players qualify for Lex Live starting this Sunday.

Over the past few years, Lex has grown to be one of the most successful poker streamers, streaming almost daily and attracting thousands of viewers. The Dutch poker pro has close to 150K viewers and gets hundreds of subscriptions daily.

Lex has won many big tournaments live in front of thousands of viewers including three back-to-back Sunday wins recently.

“When my community starting growing on Twitch, people started talking about having a meet-up where everyone could meet each other and hang out,” Lex explains. “It’s cool to be able to take the next step and strengthen the relationships.”

“We’re going to be playing poker. There are going to be some other activities, too, and we’re going to be hanging out at the bar. There will be some cool twists on some tournaments. People will recognize a lot from the stream in it. I just can’t wait for it, because I feel like over the past year the stream has grown so much it just deserves some kind of big event as well,” Lex said to PokerStars Blog.

It’s a classic modern poker tale. Online poker player and Twitch streamer catches the eye of the largest online poker room. He’s shortlisted by PokerStars as a finalist in their next great Twitch poker streamer competition, ultimately beating out four other hopefuls to take down the prize.

Along with the kudos and the spotlight shone on his burgeoning Twitch channel, he won a $30,000 Platinum Pass, which sent him to the Bahamas to compete in the PokerStars Players No Limit Hold’em Championship.

Fairytale story, right? The final chapter seems almost preordained—sponsorship with the red spade itself. That’s exactly what we saw with Ramon Colillas, another platinum pass qualifier who went on to win the PSPC who just announced his ambassadorship to the PokerStars pro roster.

But there’s a surprise twist in this story: ALLinPav has signed—but not with PokerStars. Instead, he joins partypoker! The operator, which has been aggressively eating PokerStars’ lunch of late, has nabbed the rising star of streaming after what could be some backroom bidding between the pair.

It comes at a time that has seen a trio of top Twitch stars depart PokerStars, and another three sign up with partypoker, including Matt Staples. The resurgent online poker room has also partnered with Bill Perkins’ “Thirst Lounge” streaming channel in what the company is referring to its “wider streaming strategy.”

Earlier this month, the much-awaited online poker site, Run It Once Poker finally went live to the public on February 6.

The site has implemented some of the most unique industry-first features including an innovative rewards system called “Splash the Pot.”

The program rewards all players equivalent to 51% of the rake it collects in the form of randomized amounts of money added to cash game pots which can vary from 1 big blind up to 1000 big blinds.

Thanks to the room’s “StreamR program” which rewards poker streamers additional rakeback incentives, Run It Once Poker was able to catch streamers’ reaction as soon as the “Splash the Pot” was triggered.

Partypoker has announced that Matt Staples is the first sponsored pro on the roster of its newly formed “Team Online.” The team will be made up of the “poker industry’s top streamers”—Matt Staples is the first name to be revealed, with other announcements expected soon.

Matt has made a name for himself on Twitch where he has over 3 million views and 52,000 followers. Something partypoker will definitely want to capitalize on.

Matt’s brother and ex PokerStars Team Online pro Jaime Staples, who is currently a free agent, was quick to add his congratulations into the mix on Twitter.

The signing of Matt is part of a “wider streaming strategy” from partypoker—with details remaining scant.

Only last week partypoker announced that they are sponsoring billionaire, Bill Perkins’, Thirst Lounge as part of this yet-unknown strategy.

As some of you may know by now, The Poker Brat aka Phil Hellmuth will be headed to Brazil in March to play in the partypoker $5 million MILLIONS South America event.

But in a twist, Hellmuth has taken to Twitter to ask soccer legend and one-time PokerStars SportStars Ambassador Neymar Jr to play in the event.

At the time of writing it doesn’t seem that Neymar has responded, but it would be quite the win for partypoker if he does attend—getting one up on PokerStars.

Back when Neymar Jr was affiliated with PokerStars, he helped promote a variety of games including Knockout Poker—but the partnership with Stars ended in 2017 after they disbanded their SportStars roster.

As well as playing in the Main Event, Hellmuth is hosting a free master class for anyone attending the MILLIONS event.

He is being dubbed as the new Chris Moneymaker. Ramon Colillas rags to riches story is set to inspire the next generation of poker players as he gets signed on as the newest PokerStars sponsored pro.

Relatively unknown in the poker world, Spaniard Ramon Colillas took down the PokerStars Players No Limit Hold’em Championship over in the Bahamas this past January for a cool $5.1 million in prize money.

Colillas won his way into the event via the Platinum Pass giveaway from PokerStars—an initiative to send 300 players of all abilities to the $25,000 buy-in event; all expenses paid.

Colillas won his Platinum Pass via Campeonato Espana de Poker (CEP) tour—Spain’s longest running poker tour. And one that will see Colillas returning too patched up as a PokerStars pro as he defends his 2018 title.

Just days before the CEP, PokerStars and Colillas announced the new sponsorship deal that Colillas hopes will see him as a sponsored pro representing the company “for many years to come.”

“I have fulfilled another dream,” Colillas said to PokerStars Blog. “Champion of Spain, champion of the PSPC and now representative of the best poker room. Can you ask for more? When you start in poker you always think about Team Pro, and wonder whether you could ever get there. I was still savouring the PSPC win and suddenly this opportunity came in. This is what you always dream of. The tournament was just the start. Now I’m more excited about this than the even winning in the Bahamas. I am very excited and hopefully it will last for many years.”

Colillas joins the roster of sponsored pros that include Daniel Negreanu, Chris Moneymaker and Liv Boeree.

Last year players from all over the world could win their way to the PokerStars Players No Limit Hold’em Championship event by the Platinum Pass promotion.

Platinum Passes were give away right up until the event—with the London Hippodrome Casino playing host to PokerStars London Series and MEGASTACK festival that saw Platinum Passes given way back in November 2018.

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