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The rumors that have been circulating online poker message boards have turned out to be true: Eugene Katchalov is the latest player to officially sign a sponsorship deal with PokerStars.

Katchalov, 29, is originally from the Ukraine and now lives in New York. His first live event as a Team PokerStars Pro member will come on March 26 at the Russian Poker Series Kiev tournament.

Most recently, Katchalov made major headlines when he placed first in the $100k Super High Roller tournament held at the 2011 edition of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. He finished that event with a thrilling heads up session against the legendary Daniel Negreanu, winning $1.5 million in the process.

In total, Katchalove has earned over $6.1 million in his career from live tournaments alone. In addition to his PCA win, Katchalov holds a World Poker Tour championship title.

Katchalov said that he feels “very fortunate” to now be representing PokerStars. He went on to describe it as the “largest and best-run poker site” in existence, and commended the site’s ability to assemble such a dominant pro team. Finally, Katchalov expressed his hope of helping PokerStars to continue to expand and adapt to the constantly changing online poker world.

Although Katchalov is perhaps best known for his live poker success as proven by his PCA and WPT wins, he’s also a familiar name among online poker fans. Playing as MyRabbiFoo, Katchalov has earned over $500k on PokerStars, including a $140k win in a heads-up event within the 2009 World Championship of Online Poker.

Negreanu, who is perhaps the highest profile player on the PokerStars pro roster, described Katchalov has a player who typically avoids the limelight but has gained plenty of respect from his peers. Negreanu paid him an even higher complement, saying that Eugene is highly underrated, and perhaps one of the best poker players in the world when accounting for both live and online performance.