Recently in William Thorson Category

It's a marriage a lot of people have seen coming for quite a long time.

William Thorson became a Team PokerStars Pro earlier this week, putting the icing on a long-lived relationship with his favorite online poker site.

Thorson has been a part of the PokerStars community nearly as long as the community has existed. He secured his screen name, William, back in the day such simple names were still available. If he were to try it now, his name would have to look more like x-W1LL!AM-x, and even that one may already be taken.

The new member of Team PokerStars Pro – William Thorson arrived in Vegas earlier this week. Although he has already played in four WSOP events, there's been no success so far. In today's PLO event, he lost quite a few chips to start the day. Ultimately, he raised it up with AAK2 and got two callers. The flop came KQ7 with two hearts. Thorson potted it and got one fold and one push. Committed, he called to see his opponent's AQ98 with the flush draw. The heart came on the turn and that was it for Thorson.

William thought that the earlier short-handed event would be one of his best tournaments this year. It is his type of game. He’s one of the most aggressive players on the planet. He and the short-handed event go hand-in-glove. It started badly and didn't get much better. He was down to 4000 chips and tried to work himself up again by seeing a lot of flops. After missing them all, he had 2,500 in front of him and started looking for a good double-up opportunity.

He found one. Aces, in fact. He decided just to call his opponent who raised it up to 500. Two others called behind him. On the flop KJ8 the initial raiser bet out 900 and William pushed. His opponent called and showed KQ. A jack on turn was great for William, takinig away three of his opponent's outs. Unfortunately, a king hit the river and William was sent to the rail.

So, no successes yet for Thorson, but there is still a Main Event to think about this week.

Thorson's arrival on Team PokerStars coincided with his arrival in Las Vegas. The PokerStars video blog team was able to get Thorson to settle down for a few minutes and get an interview. You can see it below. For a look at all of our video blogs from the World Series, don't forget to check out PokerStars.tv.

Watch WSOP 08: William Thorson Arrives on PokerStars.tv

Team PokerStars Pro is welcoming two new members into the fold. Both William Thorson and Marcin Horecki are joining the Team this week.

Thorson has cashed four times at the World Series, with his most notable success in the 2006 WSOP, coming in 13th place in the Main Event. He won that year $907,128, and his live tournament winnings to date already exceed $1,800,000. Thorson made the final table at the PokerStars EPT San Remo and finished ninth at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure earlier this year.

Thorson, from Varberg, Sweden, has been playing poker for as long as he can remember, learning the game from his father and playing full time since graduating high school. His first experience of online poker was with PokerStars back in 2002 when he joined the site to practice his game on the free money tables and eventually progressed on to the real money games. His success is marked by the fact that, since opening his account, he has only deposited $50 to his PokerStars account.

“To be a member of Team PokerStars Pro is an honor for me. It’s a great team with many of the world’s greatest players and I’m honoured to be included in such company – as a player I’m very proud to have my skills recognized in this way. It’s a great opportunity for me and I hope to be able to achieve big results,” he said.

Thorson plays online as ‘William’ at PokerStars, proving just how long he’s been a member of the site – a new user now would be lucky to find any popular name like “William” still unused. For more on his time at PokerStars, see this interview below.

Watch William Thorson joins PokerStars on PokerStars.tv

Joining Thorson on Team PokerStars Pro is Polish poker superstar Marcin Horecki. Already one of the highest earning Polish poker players of all time, Horecki will be looking to take down his first major title as a member of Team PokerStars Pro at one of the major events around the world.

He was first introduced to the poker tables after playing Magic: The Gathering. He started out on the play money tables at PokerStars, then worked his way up through the ranks of low stakes cash games and tournaments.

“When I first started playing the free money tables, I dreamed of becoming a Team PokerStars Pro player,” Horecki said.

He made his first impact on the live circuit in 2006, when he came close to making the final table of the €1,000 No Limit Hold’em event at the Barcelona Open. The small cash prize of $3,927 gave Horecki the confidence he needed to make it as a pro player. In January 2007, he cashed in the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Season 3 Copenhagen event, winning $9,580 for finishing in 30th. This was followed three months later by a final table appearance at the Asian Poker Classic in Goa, a cash that was worth $29,000.

Later in the year, Horecki travelled to Vienna to play in the Asian Masters, and took down the €500 No Limit Hold’em Rebuy event for $28,637. In March 2008, he also cashed in a side event at the EPT Polish Open in Warsaw, making the final table and picking up $9,675 for a third place finish.

For more on Thorson, Horecki, and the rest of Team, visit the Team PokerStars Pro page on PokerStars.com.

We'll see both players at the World Series in the coming weeks. Congratulations on making the Team, guys.