Our Verdict:
Young French player Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier is part of a new breed of player who came to poker from hardcore progaming, and travel the world in search of fame and fortune.
Well, it’s certainly worked out well for Grospellier who left his native France for South Korea to prove he could beat the best in the world at the World Cyber Games. A second place finish in 2001 (where he lost only to Korean progamer legend ‘Boxer’) turned him into a virtual gaming star in the Far East, and it’s where he lived until recently. But now he’s back in Europe and is playing all the European Poker Tour events for Team PokerStars. Just three weeks ago he finished 16th (good for $16,000) in the Baden EPT.
Gaming is very popular in South Korea, with three TV channels dedicated to it, much like ESPN is dedicated to sports in the US. The finals of the Korean Pro Gaming leagues get audiences of up to 20,000, packed into a stadium to watch the top two players battle it out on their computer screens. The top players play professionally and can gain sponsorship deals from companies. Grospellier was one of the top ranked ‘Starcraft’ players, and using the screen name ‘Elky’, and was able to secure a sponsorship deal with AMD Korea.
Then he discovered poker. He found the key skills he had developed as a progamer such as being able to think very quickly about what the best strategy is, having the ability to predict what an opponent is going to do and setting traps for them, were skills possessed by most good poker players.
As he was able to adapt to the new game so quickly – he only started playing seriously in 2004 – he was invited to join Team PokerStars. He is one of their really high volume players on PokerStars and has been noticed often playing a lot of tables (possibly more than anyone else on PokerStars) simultaneously.
Asked recently what he played online, he replied: “I play cash games, $5-$10 or $10-$20 no limit usually, and all the tournaments. Also, I play $500 and $1,000 Sit ‘n’ Go's. It depends on the game but I normally play 10 to 12 tables at the same time. If it’s a short handed game or a bigger game then I play less to focus more. But for Sit ‘n’ Go's and tournaments it’s usually very easy to play. It’s an easier situation.”
It’s obviously a formula that works. Since he started playing a couple of years ago he has racked up online winnings of well over $300,000. Just since the beginning of September 2006 he has accumulated tournament winnings on PokerStars in excess of $50,000, his biggest cash being the $14,438 he won for coming 13th in the $5,000 HORSE event in PokerStars' WCOOP.
He is also said to have picked up so many Frequent Player Points (FPPs) on Stars that it won’t be long before he’s driving an Aston Martin V8 Vantage.