Maria Konnikova becomes a PokerStars Pro

The new poster girl for the game adds another accolade to her resume with a PokerStars sponsorship.

She barely knew how to play poker a year ago but now author Maria Konnivova is a Platinum Pass winner, PCA National Champion and, as of yesterday, an official Team PokerStars Ambassador. 

For those that don't know Konnikova is an author who was researching poker for her next book where she got coaching from Erik Seidel, and within a year she won the PCA National Championship and a Platinum Pass. Since then her story has gone viral and the book's deadline has been extended so she can tell this next stage of her story. 

Now she has joined Team PokerStars in what will no doubt be a mutually beneficial deal, especially when her book is finally released. She commented:

I'm incredibly excited to be joining the PokerStars team. It's been wonderful to be an unofficial ambassador with PokerStars for this past year, and I feel it's a tremendous honour to be joining the team officially now.

I never could have imagined poker becoming as big a part of my life as it has, and joining PokerStars as an official ambassador offers me an incredible opportunity to take my game to the next level and to represent a brand that I've come to admire greatly. It certainly doesn't hurt that the people I have the pleasure of working with at PokerStars are some of the nicest, smartest, and most fun I know.

I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to share my passion for poker with the world and, hopefully, bring many new players into the game.

This writer has already speculated that her book could renew interest in the game in some sectors because of the tremendous amount of study she put into poker, rather than her win being a fluke result. Check out our interview with her to see just how hard she worked for this book.

Are you looking forward to this book? Let us know in the comments: