Martin Staszko Joins Team PokerStars Pro

It has just been announced that this year’s WSOP Main Event runner-up Martin Staszko, has just been signed on as the newest recruit to Team PokerStars Pro.
The 35-year-old Czech pro earned $5,433,086 for his WSOP runner-up finish, plus a whole lot of kudos culminating in his now representing the world’s biggest online poker room.
Previously, Staszko had been a foreman at a manufacturing plant in his home town of Trinec. There he used to get up at 5am and work twelve hour shifts, often only getting around four or five hours sleep per night.
However, around 5 years ago the talented chess player decided to turn his attention towards playing poker and, as he explains:
“Playing chess taught me how to endure long sessions by the table. Chess also required much more preparation, which is not needed for poker. So compared to chess, poker playing is a piece of cake with much higher earnings.”
Then in 2010, after entering the €5,000 EPT Deauville and placing 11th for €35,000 ($49,547), Staszko left his €15,000 per year job behind and embarked on his new career as a poker pro,
In total, Staszko was then able to earn $91,732 from live tournament, plus an additional $180,763 playing online as “filfedra,” before hitting his life changing payday in Vegas this month.
Staszko now becomes the second Czech player to join Team PokerStars, after Martin Hruby, and will be live in action on December 5th at the upcoming EPT Prague event.
Commenting on his new deal with PokerStars, Martin Staszko said:
“I enjoy a live game but for practical reasons it is better online. I can play every day without ancillary costs. The Czech Republic has almost no decent live tournaments. Even tournaments with buy-ins of five ($275) or ten thousand ($550) crowns for me are not interesting when you have to pay hotel and travel.”