PokerStars unveils Team Canada pros

PokerStars, the largest online poker site in the world, has announced four new additions to their Team PokerStars.net Pro Canada Team – to join Daniel Negreanu and Darus Suharto. The four new Canadians will represent PokerStars.net in North America and across the world. They are Greg DeBora, Patrick Pezzin, Marcello Del Grosso and Anh Van Nguyen.

All four Pros competed at the PokerStars.net North American Poker Tour event at the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut, April 6 – April 13, where the final table of the High Roller Bounty Shoot-out was comprised of players who had taken the Canadians' bounties and ended their tournaments. Van Nguyen fell to eventual winner, Jason Mercier, early in Level 2. Also in Level 2, Del Grosso was unfortunate to be Shawn Buchanan's first bounty of the day en route to his appearance at the final table. In Level 4, two other finalists knocked out the remaining Canadian Pros; Luiz Vasquez knocked DeBora out and Matt Glantz sent Pezzin packing.

About the players:

Greg DeBora is from Toronto and started playing poker at the age of 19 in a charity casino near his home. After six months, he found he was consistently making money and made the decision to play full time. He now plays mostly at the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles and online.

DeBora has played more tournaments since watching Chris Moneymaker win the World Series in 2003. Over eight years he has racked up winnings of more than $350,000 with his best live results coming at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in 2005 where he finished seventh, and in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) main event in 2008 when he finished 109th. He has $127,966 in tournament earnings to date.

Patrick "TorontoToro" Pezzin is a former restaurant general manager from Toronto who started playing poker in 1994 and turned pro a year later. The 40 year-old was a mixed game player in both Las Vegas and Los Angeles before he joined the Moneymaker internet boom, playing tournaments online. To date he has close to $700,000 in live tournament cashes.

His live cashes include WPT money finishes as well as three WSOP final tables, the most notable being his second place in the $10,000 limit hold'em championship last year. Away from poker, Pezzin is an international Bocce (a game of Italian origin similar to lawn bowling, played with wooden balls on a court covered with fine gravel) player and has represented Canada around the world as well as being President of the Ontario Bocce Association and Vice President of the Canadian Bocce Association.

Marcello Del Grosso was born and raised in Woodbridge, Ontario, by his Italian parents who moved to Canada in the 1960s. The 33 year-old worked in construction and owned a call centre for several years before turning to poker professionally in 2006. Since then he has travelled around the world playing poker and his best results to date have come in the WSOP main event where he had deep runs in both 2005 and 2006. To date he has nearly $400,000 in tournament winnings.

Anh Van Nguyen was born in Vietnam but moved to Canada at age 10 with his family. Now living in Mississauga, Ontario, Nguyen has been playing poker for 14 years and professionally for the last six, previously working as a dealer before switching to the other side of the table.

Nguyen has an impressive tournament record that includes deep runs in the WSOP main event and the Spring Championship of Online Poker main event last year, as well as the World Championship of Online Poker main event in 2004 in which he finished sixth. He also won a side event at the Five Diamond in Bellagio back in 2007. To date he has $676,720 in tournament winnings.