In a shock announcement, PokerStars have announced 2024 EPT Paris champion Barny Boatman as the latest member of Team Pro.
Less than three weeks after winning €1.2m in the French capital, the British poker legend was unveiled by James Hartigan and Joe Stapleton at a special live recording of Poker in the Ears at the Hippodrome Casino, London to mark the show’s 300th episode.
“We are delighted to welcome Barny Boatman to the PokerStars family,” said Kevin Harrington, CEO at PokerStars. “Barny’s reputation as one of the most respected and accomplished players in the industry precedes him, and we are confident that his insights and contributions will be invaluable as we continue to innovate and evolve as a platform.”
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PokerStars have announced that fans can look forward to Boatman representing the Red Spade at both live and online events, as well as in promotional campaigns and educational initiatives all aimed at “fostering growth and engagement” within the global community.
He is expected to attend the upcoming Irish Poker Open, an event he final-tabled back in 2006 when Kieran Walsh emerged triumphant.
Before his unveiling, Boatman sat down with PokerNews to discuss his new position and the history he shares not only with PokerStars but the European Poker Tour (EPT) as well.
“I’m really excited about being involved with PokerStars,” Boatman said. “It’s an honour to be connected with people like Sam Grafton and the Spraggy family. I play on PokerStars and everybody knows the fantastic software and how trusted it is as a site. But it goes deeper than that because I was around at the beginning of the EPT.
“…there’s still a game you can enjoy, that you can improvise and bring your personality to”
“Before that, it was a very American-centric tournament scene, and John Duthie came along — a friend as well as a player — and he had a vision about the European Poker Tour and doing something that was really for the players. And PokerStars got involved, made it what it is and it couldn’t have happened without them.”
Boatman says that over his career, it’s the relationship between online and live poker that has helped the live scene flourish and bring it to the attention of a much wider audience.
“I want to remind people that although the game has developed an enormous amount it’s got more technical, it’s still the game that you love and that you learned playing around the kitchen table. Learning all this new stuff is important as a basis, but there’s still a game you can enjoy, that you can improvise and bring your personality to. And for me, the live game is very special, and the EPT provide the perfect format for bringing out every aspect of the game.”
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In a previous interview, Boatman said that “the person who puts the work in will get there,” so we asked him whether he felt his position now as EPT champion and PokerStars ambassador counts as “getting there”.
“I saw a link to a hand recently […] where the two chip leaders clashed KxKx vs AxKx and two aces came on the flop. It brought me back to the last two tables of the [WPT] Five Diamond at the Bellagio in 2005, where I had the kings and it came the same flop. I went out in 18th place in that hand and the other guy won $2 million.
“Every poker player has a million stories like that, but being reminded of that one…my poker career is littered with finishes like that. And my game, especially in these big stack tournaments where you’ve got a lot of time to play, I know how to get to those late stages with decent chips. But getting there is half the job. The last stage with the ICM implications and the big decisions – a decision might be the difference between $10,000 and $1 million.
“I’ve been in at least a dozen final tables where first place was over $1 million. I know sometimes I made mistakes, sometimes I ran bad and sometimes I got outplayed. But certainly I never finished the job. But this really feels like. Wow. That’s what they’ve been talking about. That’s what I’ve been doing this for. And it’s very exciting.”
About Barny Boatman
An original member of the Hendon Mob — a group of four British poker players made up of Boatman, his brother Ross along with Joe Beever sand Ram Vaswani — Boatman is considered one of the most esteemed British poker players in history. Since his first recorded cash — a Seven Card Stud tournament in Slovenia — Boatman has amassed a rich and storied tournament history.
A second-place finish in a WSOP bracelet event in 2002 was followed by a a deep run in the 2005 WPT Five Diamond. Then a final table performance at the 2009 Aussie Millions and a 13th-place finish in the 2010 WSOP Europe Main Event showed that Boatman had a major taste for deep runs in major tournaments.
It was only a matter of time before he picked up his first bit of WSOP wristwear, winning a $1,500 No Limit Hold’em bracelet in 2013, less than two years after another major final table, this time at EPT Sanremo Main Event.
A third-place finish in another $1,500 Limit Hold’em bracelet event in 2015 showed that a second bracelet was on the cards and it duly came at WSOP Europe later that year in a €550 Pot Limit Omaha event.
Since then, Boatman has showed that age is just a number with five final table performances at the WSOP in the last two years, including another runner-up finish at the 2023 WSOP Europe, all before his EPT Paris Main Event triumph earlier this year.
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Based in the United Kingdom, Will started working for PokerNews as a freelance live reporter in 2015 and joined the full-time staff in 2019.
He graduated from the University of Kent in 2017 with a B.A. in German. He also holds an NCTJ Diploma in Sports Journalism.
