17 years is a long time, whatever you spend it doing.
Back in January 2009, President Barack Obama was sworn in for his first term in office, Michael Jackson was planning a world tour, and young poker hotshot Lex Veldhuis had just signed with PokerStars as an ambassador.
In the intervening period one could fit the entire reigns of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar or Keeping Up With the Kardashians. It’s twice the span of the recording career of The Beatles, and longer than many marriages.
And while there’s none of the bitterness of a divorce or a band break-up, Lex Veldhuis’ departure from the PokerStars brand has given the Dutch poker-streaming phenomenon a new lease of life. When major relationships end, it’s natural to spend some time figuring out who we are as an individual, what we want to do and where we want to go, and Veldhuis is leaning into the chance for renewal, reinvention and reinvigoration.
Plus, with no partnership commitments there are opportunities to ‘play the field’. After 17 years of playing exclusively at PokerStars, Veldhuis returned to the online streets this week with his first ever tournament at GGPoker. It went well.
'I'm ready to grind'
“It's been 17 good years,” Veldhuis shares in an exclusive chat with PokerOrg. “I didn’t know if I would be doing this for 10 years. I figured after so long it would be cool to see what's out there, try different things, spice up the stream, try being a free agent in the poker world. New beginnings.”
That experimentation has already led to great tournament results, but as a streamer Veldhuis has other metrics for success, and that’s been going well too.
After a months-long period away from poker streaming — an age in the world of daily livestream content — his return to poker on Twitch proved that his audience is still there for him, with his first stream of the year drawing in the type of viewership numbers not seen for a while.
He’s also diversifying, adding Kick to his streaming platforms in addition to Twitch and YouTube, where he streams without music (‘in case you hate my music, or want to play your own’).
Veldhuis is keen to stress that his time away from poker-streaming was not due to waning interest, and viewers can expect more changes than simply a switch from exclusively playing at PokerStars.
“During this period offline I was able to do some very useful things and upgrade a lot of stuff. There's a lot of technical improvements in my stream, there's a lot of new content, everything got smoother, everything got better, and now it's time to grind. And I'm ready to grind.”
The PokerStars ‘muscle memory’
While his return to online play has already paid off in the most crucial sense for a poker player (he won another tourney for $20K the day after his first success at GGPoker), the changes have not come without their teething problems.
But as Veldhuis explains, the tricky adjustment is not necessarily a bug, but a feature.
“I am quite the boomer sometimes. I sit behind a computer all the time, and I know my way around them, but it gets so ingrained in muscle memory when you do something for so long."
"I played solely on PokerStars for 17 years, so you just forget how everything else works, you have to find your way. I don't know where any buttons are, or I can't find a satellite, that sort of thing."
“But I think that's part of the charm of it, that's what my audience likes seeing. When people watch gamers, they want to watch the first playthrough. Like, how does somebody do it on their first try? So I guess it has that element of it.
“There's lots of changes, of course, but it’s re-energized everyone — me and my audience. It's just fun to go through something new."
“I have been streaming for 10 years, solely on Pokerstars, so now it feels like I'm doing something completely different, and of course, one of the biggest things is that I'm home. That's really nice.”
‘What are the coolest things we can try?’
With PokerStars unavailable in Veldhuis’ home nation of The Netherlands since 2021, the ability to play on other sites is, literally, a game-changer for him.
GGPoker is available from his home, and the site’s built-in staking feature has added a new twist to his streams as well as new opportunities for viewers to interact with his action in a major, new way: by buying it.
“Selling action is really nice, it's very fun. I have to say, sometimes it's a weird line, because I feel very responsible for what my viewers buy. So they've been asking me, like, ‘Sell for the $10K GGMillion$’, and I'm like, ‘Well, you know, that tournament's kind of tough’."
“It’s a weird one, because I don't want to make people think that this is some great investment or something, but some people are like, ‘Yeah, just shut up and register, we just want to have a sweat!’ But then other people, the way they talk about it, they might think, like, ‘Oh my god, this is my golden ticket!’ So, it's a very thin line to thread, and I feel very responsible to do it in the right way.
“But it is a very fun feature, and I am as open to my audience as possible. So, to be honest, last Sunday I would not have played the $10K GGMillion$, and I played it, and everybody loved watching it.”
GGPoker’s big buy-in events aren’t the only new online spaces where we can expect to see Veldhuis play, with ACR Poker’s Venom events and CoinPoker both mentioned as attractive possibilities. WSOP Online awarded its first bracelet in 2015, the middle of Veldhuis’ PokerStars tenure, and his newfound free-agent status means this could be the year he takes aim at the series for the first time.
“I definitely think that I'm playing WSOP Online. When you're with a site for a very long time, it's not like you just put shutters on to the rest of what's happening out there. But now it's just like, ‘Okay, what are the coolest things we can try?’, and WSOP Online would definitely be on that list.
“There's a lot of criticism about the amount of bracelets everywhere and stuff; I think that's all well and true, but then you have one and you're like, ‘Anything’s better than zero’.”
‘Lex Live 5 is happening this summer, 100%’
Away from the online world, Veldhuis is also weighing up his options for some live play in 2026. And while a visit to the WSOP in Las Vegas remains a possibility (‘Will I play? I don't know, but it's fun to think about’), there’s one live stop that is a certainty: his annual Lex Live meet-ups, the last of which took place in Bratislava last June.
“I can definitely say that Lex Live 5 is gonna be happening this summer, 100%. People say about projects or things they do, ‘That's my baby’, but that really is my baby.
“Lex Live gives me so much energy, it's the best poker week of the year for me, easily, so that's 100% gonna happen. I would say probably either the third week of June or the third week of July.”
For the moment, though, his return to streaming is giving him the buzz he needs, re-energized with new sites, new tournaments and new opportunities. Back in the saddle, Veldhuis is keen to give his loyal viewers more of what they’ve been missing.
“For the next few weeks, I'm just gonna be streaming every single evening apart from Friday, so you can always find me, and then throughout the year I'm just gonna pick it back up with Tuesday to Thursday daytime Europe streaming, and then for Sundays a long-ass European into American night stream: a marathon on Sunday.”
Are the ambassador days done?
Finally, we have to ask: does he see another ambassador role in his future? While he’s enjoying his newfound freedom, it’s not something he’s ruling out, though he makes clear he’s in no hurry to settle down with a new partner.
“It's like, if you break up with somebody from a 17-year relationship, just chill out for a little bit, you know? Relax, see what that's like. That's definitely where I’m at now.
“I'm definitely open to ambassadorships in the future, because I like working in a team towards a common goal, if you have your visions aligned, because you actually get to have a lot of influence. You can contribute a lot to poker behind the scenes: rewards programs, structures, or being the mediator between regulars and sites. I love that role.
“I definitely think that an ambassadorship is probably somewhere in the future, but right now I just love this.
“It feels very cool to me now, to just have an unlimited spectrum of possibilities.”
You can follow Lex on X, and catch his streamed play at Twitch, Kick and YouTube.
Images courtesy of Lex Veldhuis/Manuel Kovsca/Joe Giron/Rational Intellectual Holdings Ltd.
