The world mostly knows Bertrand Grospellier on account of his recent poker tournaments successes. People who have known him for a while though know him for something entirely different.
Does the nickname “ElkY” ring a bell? It sure does for all those who ever played Starcraft online. Betrand “ElkY” Grospellier was at one point in his career regarded as one of the top Starcraft players in the world.
He finished 2nd in the 2001 World Cybergames, 4th in 2002, 5th in 2003 and in the top 16 in 2004. As soon as Warcraft III Reign of Chaos appeared, he threw himself upon the newly released game and sure enough he scored a 2nd place finish in the Ongamenet Warcraft Retail League.
That there turned out to be his last accomplishment as a professional gamer, as shortly afterwards he retired. His money-making online gaming ways remained however, and soon he found himself involved neck deep in online poker.
With skills and patience acquired during the endless hours of perfecting his online gaming skills, he began playing at PokerStars, and soon he became the first player ever to reach Supernova status at the site by accumulating 100,000 points in 2 weeks of play.
Soon after that, he broke the “Supernova Elite” barrier too, by gathering 1 million PokerStars points during four and a half months of play.
Unstoppable at the online tables, he realized the real money was in live tournaments. He won his way into several WSOP events in 2006 and 2007, not to mention 2008 when he had several deep cash finishes in WSOP and EPT events.
He doesn’t currently have a WSOP bracelet to show, but he does have 6 cash finishes, his highest ever Main Event finish a 370th place obtained in 2008.
He also has a WPT title, which he won in the Festa al Lago in October 2008, a title which is his only WPT cash and final table in the same time.
Grospellier won the Copenhagen stop of the EPT in 2007, scoring a win of €309,000, he has another EPT final table presence and 3 more money finishes. He is one of only three people who have both a WPT and an EPT title.
Word has it he has amassed over $4 million form tournament winnings alone.