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In the aftermath of Black Friday you were far more likely to see online poker rooms trimming their rosters than adding to them, but now over six-months after that infamous day it seems the online poker sites have decided to once again start rewarding the game’s top performers with sponsorship deals.

Just before the final table of the World Series of Poker PokerStars made one of the biggest signings in quite some time, inking eventual WSOP Champion Pius Heinz to a sponsorship deal, and now the site has added to its Team PokerStars Sports roster with the addition of Gold Medal skier Marcus Hellner of Sweden.

Hellner joins an impressive roster of superstars in the world of sports who wear the PokerStars patch at tournaments around the world, including Boris Becker, Sebastien Chabal, Fatima Moreira de Melo, Gigi Buffon, and Gaulter Salles.

PokerStars wasn’t the only site adding to their sponsorship roster this week. On Monday Betfair announced it had inked a deal with sports-bettor turned poker pro Hans Martin Vogl of Germany (perhaps anticipating a rush of new German poker players thanks to Mr. Heinz’s accomplishment at the WSOP) best known for his final table appearance at the Aussie Million in 2007. For his career Vogl has pocketed an impressive $400k, despite playing a very limited number of tournaments.

We’ll also be hearing from PKR Poker later this week, as the site has sent out preemptive press releases announcing a major signing on the 17^th.

The first-ever edition of the European Poker Tour Loutraki is currently being played in Loutraki, Greece at the Club Hotel Casino Loutraki. A total of 145 runners registered on Day 1a, each paying 4,400 Euro buy-ins. When the chips were counted at the end of the day, Julian Herold of Germany was at the top of the leaderboard with 138,425 chips.

Herold faced stiff competition at his table in the form of Roberto Romanello, a former EPT champion. He hit his stride early in the day, doubling up through Romanello’s bluff with a nut flush. Later on, Loutraki sealed his lead for the day with a nut straight (J-9 hole cards with a 10-8-7 flop) over Jason Wheeler and Emmanoyil Martorakis.

Kent Lundmark, another EPT champion, had a positive day as well. In a key hand, Lundmark faced off against Paul Ribaud, who pushed all-in with A-10 offsuit. Lundmark was holding A-K suited and managed to hold strong through the board, amassing 60k chips in the process. The aforementioned Romanello recovered from his losses to Herold late in the day, eventually finishing with 21k chips.

Three other former EPT champions will be returning for Day 2 as well, including Rupert Elder (83k chips), Mats Gavatin (46k chips) and David Vamplew (34k chips). Other noted pros that survived Day 1a included Chris Moorman (39k), David Peters (64k), Steve O’Dwyer (66k), Jason Wheeler (75k), Roman Makhlin (102k) and Mclean Karr (103k).

The day didn’t go nearly as well for Team PokerStars Pro. Although Ana Marquez was able to handily survive the day with 41k chips, her teammates Martin Horecki and Richard Toth weren’t so lucky, hitting the day before the day was over.

A total of 102 players from Day 1a will return for Day 2 on Thursday, but not before the field gets a whole lot bigger in Day 1b on Wednesday.

After over two years of anticipation and plenty of playful back-and-forth trash talk, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and Lex Veldhuis of Team PokerStars Pros are finally about to make good on an unusual prop bet – a real, full-contact kickboxing match.

It was recently announced that the epic fight will occur on November 22, and the rules have finally been established as well. The “fighters” will engage in five rounds of kickboxing, with each round lasting three minutes. A tie will be declared unless one fighter is either knocked out or throws in the towel.

ElkY and Veldhuis will be allowed to throw punches and spinning kicks, but kicks below the belt, elbows and headbutts will not be allowed. A referee, yet to be identified officially, will stay in the ring to ensure that the rules are followed and to declare a knockout, should it occur.

Veldhuis has already started pumping up his chances of winning, saying that he’s the more natural athlete and the more experienced fighter, and that Grospellier appears uncoordinated. Indeed, it’s unlikely that Grospellier ever imagined he’d be engaging in a spectator kickboxing match when he was earning his living as a professional Starcraft player.

Don’t count ElkY out just yet, though – apparently, he’s been logging plenty of hours at various kickboxing training camps, and even Veldhuis admits that Grospellier is in better physical shape currently.

On Twitter, Doyle Brunson has said that he’s worried about the pair’s physical well-being despite the excitement coming from the professional poker community: “Sounds like an ego fight. U guys are nuts, someone is going to get badly hurt.”A couple of street fights?” I must have had 20. No fun.”

Veldhuis responded, saying that kickboxing and MMA are “normal and accepted sport(s),” and that severe injuries are rare. Brunson replied with “Yeah right! When you have broken bones, tell me about it. If you got hurt training, imagine how hard the real deal will be.#goodluck”

You may have a hard time believing this, but the answer is zero dollars. Pius Heinz, a native of Germany and the winner of the 2011 World Series of Poker Main Event, will not have to pay a dime in taxes on the staggering $8.7 million he won just a single week ago.

The news comes courtesy of Clayton Financial and Tax’s Russ Fox along with Darren Rovell of CNBC. Heinz owes a big thank-you to the U.S.-Germany Tax Treaty, which states that gambling income is “exempt from U.S. taxation.” The German government classifies gambling earnings as post-tax funds, and as such, Heinz will hold onto every dollar of his $8,715,638.

The situation is even more incredible when you compare it to that of Peter Eastgate, the 2008 WSOP Main Event champ and a native of Denmark. Eastgate won $9.1 million for his victory, but was only able to keep under $3 million thanks to the 73% tax rate his homecountry slapped on his take.

Remember, players are taxed based on where they permanently reside, not where they win their money through poker. This year, it just so happened that the overall tax rate on the November Nine was 18.91%. A total of $28.2 million was awarded, and $5.4 million of that will go directly to the players’ respective state and federal governments. That’s far better than in 2010 when 43% of the final table money was sucked up by taxes.

The only other player to escape tax-free from the final table is Sam Holden of the U.K., who finished in 9th but will keep the entirety of his $782,115. One of the hardest-hit players was Ben Lamb, who will keep just under $2.5 million of the $4 million he won in the Main Event.

Attendance counts were up across the board from last week in this past Sunday’s round of major poker tournaments at PokerStars, the world’s biggest online poker site. Four players received six-figure scores, with LaurisL91 emerging as the weekend’s biggest winner with a money finish worth over $178k.

A staggering 7,030 runners paid $215 buy-ins into the Sunday Million, generating a prize pool worth over $1.4 million. The final three players struck a three-handed deal that resulted in tost89, Laurynas “LaurisL91″ Levinskas and flpro157 receiving sums of $170k, $178k and $130k, respectively. Tost89 scored a full house (fours full of aces) on the final hand to secure the victory.

The Sunday Warm-Up easily busted its $500k guarantee when 3,735 players paid $215 buy-ins to create a $747k prize pool. Timo “heißtercamp” Pfützenreuter emerged as the chip leader early in the tournament and held onto the lead throughout the entire event. No deal was struck, giving Pfützenreuter a massive score of over $117k. Runners-up Macstribe and vovkawow earned $87k and $62k, respectively, for their performances.

The Sunday 500 was an outright marathon last weekend, with 757 players paying $530 each to amass a pool worth $378.5k. After 3:00 am EST, Jason “jdtjpoker” Wheeler emerged victorious to take down the $69k first-place prize without a deal. Team PokerStars Pro Vanessa Selbst finished 15th for roughly $3.3k.

Selbst’s teammate Liv Boeree put on a strong showing in the Bigger $162, an event with 1,458 players and a $219k buy-in. She finally hit the rail in fifth place when another opponent’s A-Q offsuit improved on the board against her 5-5. Boeree earned $11.5k for her impressive performance, while chiconogue ultimately won the tournament for $34k following another three-handed deal.