Discovering The World of Poker

ElkY started playing poker in late 2003, introduced to the game by Daniel Lykins, a good friend from the professional StarCraft community. This was at the time of the poker boom, when Chris Moneymaker had won the WSOP Main Event after qualifying online at PokerStars. ElkY recalls

ElkY is streaming now Poker & Gaming on twitch.tv/elky to share his passion with his community and he has joined the Hearthstone division of Team Liquid. Pro Player, Streamer, Caster, Consultant The Perfect Gaming Industry Suit. 4 of Card Player Magazine, featuring a cover story about Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospellier Conquers the Caribbean. This was published on Feb 27, 08. Bertrand Grospellier, better known by his online username ‘ElkY’, is renowned as one of poker’s strongest tournament players, and is just one of five people to have accomplished poker’s Triple Crown. ElkY developed a competitive streak from a young age, becoming a professional video game player in his teenage years. The poker player ElkY was first discovered by HighstakesDB on the high stakes tables of PokerStars on Monday, February 7, 2011. Since then, a total of 162 poker hands have been tracked with ElkY's.

“I had no idea what it was, but I was curious and had few hours to kill in front of me. He told me to open up an account on PokerStars and he sent me 10$ so I could give it a shot.”

ElkY created his new ‘ElkY’ account on PokerStars and although he barely knew the rules, started playing.

Though the initial $10 deposit came to nothing, he went on to deposit $100 of his own funds, where he played $0.50/$1.00 NLHM for fun play during the first couple of months. By then, the game had seriously captured his interest and ElkY began to take poker much more seriously. With his main focus on cash games, he ordered as many books on poker strategy as he could (although there weren’t many at the time) and mixed this with online research into the subject. At this point, many StarCraft players were also getting into poker and ElkY also became involved in developing the strategy learning within their community. At one point ElkY was living with other fellow former StarCraft poker players in Vancouver, who were currently the best in the industry

“we helped each other a lot I would just sit behind them for 10 days straight, with them explaining to me each of their decisions, it was incredibly helpful”.

All of those elements combined and taking the game seriously took ElkY to the next level in his game.

In June 2006, ElkY was offered a place on the prestigious Team PokerStars Pro, an elite team of professional poker players who demonstrated poker achievements or promise in poker beyond the average professional players’ ability.

This was a “dream come true” for ElkY who had started his poker career on PokerStars, but also opened up new opportunities for him. Until then, ElkY had focused primarily on cash games, however, he started to play tournaments as part of his agreement as a Team PokerStars Pro. As he grew more familiar with tournaments, ElkY became more and more interested in tournament strategy, until finally his focus was entirely on winning tournaments.

In 2008, came ElkY’s first huge career break in the poker world. He won the prestigious PCA (PokerStars Caribbean Adventure) 2008. Defining this was a particularly key win for him as it is one of the biggest tournaments for PokerStars players “more than any other on the planet and was my 1st tournament win, the biggest, in an unreal atmosphere.” Many of his friends were at the PCA who had supported him throughout his journey in poker until then, making it one of his amazing memories.

Another significant tournament in ElkY’s opinion was WPT Festa Al Lago in 2008 where he dominated the tournament from start to finish. “It was such a surreal feeling too, because I made some of the sickest plays during that one, and I felt like I never missed a beat.” This tournament was also really well timed for him, as it was about the time where he decided to become more ‘professional’ in his approach to poker, and this clearly paid off instantly.

Elky Poker Girlfriend

ElkY proved himself as a poker all rounder in the WCOOP 2009 with 2 victories! Even though he was originally an online player, with a StarCraft background and online PokerStars play, the prestigious online tournament victories had so far eluded him.

Elky Poker Player

He had had success in 2008 WCOOP, however, he had never actually won a big online tournament, so winning 2 almost back to back in the most prestigious online tournament series meant a lot to him.

It was with the WSOP 2011 that ElkY forged his place forever, among the small elite of premier poker players. These poker players have achieved the Poker’s Triple Crown. To achieve this, a player must win an EPT (PCA 2008), a WPT (Fiesta Al Lago 2008) and a WSOP bracelet (WSOP 2011). No mean feat! However, with ElkY’s determination and talent, he won’t rest on his laurels – so we can look forward to seeing much more from this very special player.

Elky Poker Player Mma Fight

2018 is the year for a new chapter, ElkY cumulated poker achievements and demonstrated his poker professional players’ ability, and now is ready to contribute in another way… This chapter will be revealed soon.