Who’ll get the patch? Final PokerStars ambassador shortlist confirmed

When PokerStars announced the debut of its Live League back in February, an interesting new meta-game was launched in Europe's live poker arena.

Success in the operator’s live events — from European Poker Tour main events to high rollers, PokerStars Opens and Cups — would translate to points across high, medium and low leaderboards.

Finishing in the top 3 of any leaderboard would come with a prize package worth up to €62,400, buying you in to various live events in 2026. But finishing in the top 10 on any of the charts would see you eligible for an even more significant prize: a year-long contract to represent PokerStars as an ambassador, worth €100,000.

Sunday, December 21 marked the end of the Live League, as Paul Francois Tedeschi took down the final event of the year with victory in the €1,100 PokerStars Open Cannes Main Event.

Tedeschi is the final PokerStars Main Event winner of 2025.

With €195,700 in prize money, Tedeschi is now knocking on the door of France’s all-time money list top 20. But with PokerStars’ last live event of the year now in the books, the final phase of the battle to become an ambassador for the site has just begun.

With 10 names from each leaderboard qualified for consideration, the process will now begin to select the winner of the coveted sponsorship deal, with a winner expected to be announced at EPT Paris in February.

So, who’s in the running to wear the red spade next year?

Qualifiers from the High leaderboard

With multiple wins at EPT Prague this month — including several in events with just a single-table field — Italy’s Enrico Camosci sewed up top spot on the High leaderboard. His prize is a €62,400 package comprising entry to 4x EPT main events and 4x EPT high rollers.

In second place was Austria’s Klemens Roiter, who wins entry to 4x EPT main events, while third place went to Latvia’s Aleksejs Ponakovs, who collects a pass for 2x EPT main events.

The High leaderboard tracks results in events with buy-ins over €5,000, and so, as expected, contains some of the bigger names that will likely be more familiar to players across the world.

With big results in the US, Europe, Asia, The Bahamas and online, Jesse Lonis has had a great 2025.

Hayley Hochstetler

These include the two Americans to have made the cut: serial winner Jesse Lonis (who registered his biggest ever tournament win in May with victory in the Triton Montenegro Main Event, worth over $3.4M), and 2024’s Global Poker Index Player of the Year David Coleman, who won the Poker Masters in October.

Others who may strike a chord of recognition include the high rollers Christopher Nguyen and Leon Sturm, both of whom feature regularly at big money events not only in Europe but across the world.

High leaderboard - final top 10 standings

The Medium leaderboard

The Medium leaderboard, targeting players at the €1,000-€4,999 buy-in level, has a number of fascinating candidates, including one former and one current ambassador, as well as a player who has qualified for consideration not once, but twice.

Kenny Hallaert of Belgium made headlines in 2025 for his final table run in the WSOP Main Event, where he finished 4th for his best ever tournament score of $3 million. And what’s more, it wasn’t his first trip to the very sharpest end of the big one, as he’d previously come 6th back in 2016.

As an existing member of Team PokerStars Pro and a live events advisor for the brand, Hallaert is the one player among the league’s qualifiers not to have an eye on the ambassador role. His strong 3rd place finish on the leaderboard has won him a €3,300 package to play 3x PS Open events in 2026, though.

Hallaert, pictured at the WSOP Main Event, already has his PokerStars patch.

Omar Sader

Top of the Medium pile at the year’s end is Gerard Rubiralta Cortes, who collected a €25,600 live events package. He recently shared his excitement at beating Petre Bogdan Ionescu into 2nd place, where the Romanian won a €6,600 package.

Outside the prize spots, but still in the top 10 and with a shot at returning to the red spade, is Barny Boatman. The much-respected UK player was named a member of Team Pro following his EPT Paris triumph in 2024, but parted ways with the company earlier this year. Boatman has since let it be known, however, that he would be very interested in returning to his ambassadorial role, and with a strong finish on the Medium chart has put himself in with a fighting chance.

Gerard Carbo of Spain, meanwhile, is the only player to have made the top 10 on two different leaderboards, with a string of great results across the year landing him 6th spot on the Medium and 5th on the Low leaderboards.

Medium leaderboard - final top 10 standings

Two Davids, no Goliath in the running from the Low leaderboard

The Low leaderboard tracks points accrued in events with a buy-in under €1K, bringing it within reach of many more players yet also arguably allowing the cream to rise to the top with greater ease. With the cheaper events attracting more casual and local players, the thinking goes, a strategic approach to the leaderboard could pay dividends for those with the means and desire to grind a full schedule.

The prizes at the top of the tree were less enriching — Stein Karlsson of Iceland picked up a €15,000 live events package for 1st place — but all the top 10 will have the same opportunity to become a PokerStars Team Pro as their counterparts on the higher-priced leaderboards.

The list may not feature much in the way of super high rollers, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some very recognizable faces in the mix, which also includes the sole female candidate, Soraya Estrada Gonzalez, one of three players from Spain to make the shortlist from the Low leaderboard.

David Lappin already has a deal with WPT Global.

David Docherty of Scotland is a former UKIPT Player of the Year, winner of the 2023 Irish Poker Open, and one of the subjects of last year’s BBC documentary The Four Rules of the Poker Kings.

Meanwhile Docherty's namesake — David Lappin, of Ireland — has also made the top 10. The longtime poker writer, player, and co-host of The Chip Race podcast would surely make a great ambassador, and that’s not just our opinion; it’s also clearly the opinion of WPT Global, who signed Lappin up as an ambassador earlier this year.

It’s hard to imagine this existing affiliation won’t count against Lappin when the PokerStars judges gather to cast their votes for the next player to don the red spade, but this is poker: anything can happen, and does every day.

Low leaderboard - final top 10 standings

For now, the 29 players in with a chance of joining PokerStars as a new ambassador can relax and enjoy the holiday season, reflecting on a year-long job well done.

The process to select a winner will begin soon enough in the new year, and as soon as a decision is made, we’ll bring you the news.

^{Additional images courtesy of Eloy Cabacas/Danny Maxwell/Rational Intellectual Holdings Ltd.}