Poker Pro endorsements play in decision to join site?

I'm wondering if any of you guys base your decision at which online poker room to play at based on the rooms endorsements from celebrities or poker players. If so, to what extent?

This does not affect my decision in joining a poker room whatsoever.

I would think most the guys here care a lot more about prop pay, rakeback, bonuses, and other benefits.

Has no bearing on where I play. But, would think the big names are able to attract the new unexperienced players.

I mean I drink Pepsi ever since Brittney Spears (when she was still hot) did that commerical for them.

For me its had some influence.

If PokerStars did not have professional players endorsing them I probably wouldn't of ever heard their name enough to have made the transition from playing big MTT at Party to playing them at PokerStars. Who endorsed PokerStars did not so much play into my decision, but seeing them endorsed made me more aware of their site and eventually I started to take their site more seriously and found a lot of things I liked about it.

The only time i specifically recall joining a poker room because of who endorsed it was Full Contact Poker. I joined after they had left OnGame and moved to a small network I really did not trust. Being a sucker for small sites (because they often have a lot of fish that haven't discovered the big sites yet) I joined this game over the others because I seen Daniel Negreanu as the type of person who both values his reputation in the industry and ultimately as someone about advancing the game of poker and looking out for players best interests (to a reasonable extent).

Off the top of my head I can't recall other times where on a conscious level I chose one room over another.

What got me to thinking about this was the situation with JohnnyBax signing with ultimate bet. If a poker room that was brand new opened up called JohnnyBax Poker or SheetsWorld or something like that, and it was endorsed by Bax/Sheets and possibly some other young pros I would certainly join and check it out as well as tell a few friends about it. I guess this is why his signing with Ultimate Bet was so strange to me.

Anyways after thinking about this I was wondering why poker rooms sign pros. Obviously if there sending them out to play live tournaments its good advertising for their sites when they win tournaments etc. This is additional exposure which plays big on the subconscious level. I can certainly understand this. I think certain players though are better signings then others, becase with some a players reputation and status in the poker community comes along with signing a player likely to win tournaments.

Sorry kind of a rant here but after hardly any sleep I found myself thinking a lot about this last night.

I think pro endoresments are partially why Pokerstars and FTP are the dominate sites.
In reality, an inexperienced online play who doesn't know about rakeback or play skill of sites will likely choose the site he thinks has the best image. For some people that's playing on stars with their 3 WSOP champs. For some that means playing with big name pros on FTP. Hell, I'm sure some people play on UB for no other reason than the fact Hellmuth supports it.


I probably selected stars at first because other people I knew were playing there. The first final table I saw on TV was when raymer won... in all likelyhood that probably had more effect on my finding 2+2 than selecting stars.

I definitely agree that endorsements are a huge part of poker sites. It provides a way bigger impact for recreational players seeing Daniel Negreanu on a PokerStars commercial compared to a crappy Absolute Poker commercial that looks like a low budget informational.

Not at all. Rakeback and software are by far the biggest factors for me. The ability to multitable properly is so huge, resizable software, the auto max buy option sites are adding are all bigger. The use of a HUD is nice too. How fishy the games are is obviously big. Pro endorsements might be the least significant factor in choosing a room for me.

It doesn't affect what site I play on... but clearly it 'matters' to the masses.

I promise you they do not spend 100s of thousands... perhaps millions... on one person unless they think they can make it back in customer accounts. That would be.. well... just dumb from a marketing perspective.

I was surprised to see a player of Bax's caliber signing on with UB to be honest. But it only goes to reinforce: Every man has his price. LOL

From what I hear Bax is loaded. I wonder how much they offered him. Makes the whole situation pretty curious as to what his price is.

It does matter. That's why sites where they give you 100% rakeback don't have traffic. And if they do, the games are tough because it attracts better players. So sometimes, it's better to play at a site where they don't offer you the best bonusses/rakeback. Just because they have alot of bad players.

Originally Posted by Hanslopez

It does matter. That's why sites where they give you 100% rakeback don't have traffic. And if they do, the games are tough because it attracts better players. So sometimes, it's better to play at a site where they don't offer you the best bonusses/rakeback. Just because they have alot of bad players.

Man how I miss Games Grid
Propping actually attracts a lot of losing players, I find the sites with little traffic to be the best though as this is where the losing players tend to migrate to as they're more concerned with the community aspect of poker. This is something i enjoy too but I don't mind being friends with someone why I take a bill or two off them here and there over and over again repeated times 20

Another solid aspect of playing on a very solid room is you can get great reads and really take advantage of the note taking ability. I'm sure a lot of us old GamesGriders remember MrBernstine!