Elky wins the 2009 WPT Player of the Year Award

Poker News - July 7, 2009 - Written by Bruce

Winning one World Poker Tour event is a hard enough task in itself. Winning the Player of the Year Award is an achievement that truly indicates an amazing year of poker. Bertrand "Elky" Grospellier had a remarkable 2009 World Poker Tour season earning him the prestigious Player of the Year Award. Last October Elky bested a field of 368 players to win the $15,000 buy in Festa al Lago WPT event. This huge victory was worth over $1.4 million and earned him 1000 Player of the Year points. A few months later he made a deep run in the WPT LA Poker Classic finishing 32nd place for $38,085. Going into final event of the year Elky needed to finish 4th place or better to win Player of the Year. The $25,000 WPT World Championship took place in April at the Bellagio. Once again Elky managed to navigate through this difficult field making yet another final table before going out in 3rd. He earned $776,245 for his performance and picked up another 600 points which made him the 2009 WPT Player of the Year. His 1600 points was 200 points better than the 2nd place finisher John Phan.

Before finding poker, Elky was a well known pro gamer and was one of the top ranked Starcraft players in the world. He placed 2nd in the 2001 World Cyber Games and then 4th in the Ongamenet Starleague. In 2002 he finished 2nd in the televised Ongamenet Warcraft Retail League and then retired from professional gaming shorty after. With his background as a successful pro gamer it makes a bit of sense as to how Elky would find success in the poker world. He holds a Guiness World Record for most online Single Table Sit and Go Tournaments played in one hour with a total of 62. Being able to play so many tables at a time enabled Elky to become the first player ever to reach Supernova and Supernova Elite status on Pokerstars. He earned an amazing 100,000 player points in two weeks and then earned 1,000,000 player points in four and half months. After his recent successes he has been signed as Team Pokerstars member.

The last year for Elky included more than just his WPT performances. In January he won the Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure High Roller Event for a whopping $433,500. A year before he won the Main Event at the same tournament for a huge $2,000,000. He also went on to finish third at the NBC National Heads Up Championship. With all of these amazing achievements Elky has shown that he has successfully made the transition from pro gamer to pro poker player. He is arguably the hottest poker player in the world over the last two years and will be a force at the tables for many years to come.