Revenge of the Nerd
Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier was one of the fi rst westerners to play computer games for a living. His silver medal in the World Cyber Games in Korea bizarrely made the Frenchman a household name in that country. When he turned his skills to our beloved game, he soon became a hero of the online poker world, too. Now, as a budding live player, the 27-year-old must forget about virtual reality for the fi rst time in his life and concentrate on the real world around him. And with a victory at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in January, he now sits astride the live player rankings for 2008. BLUFF charts ElkY’s rise from gamer to potential Hall of Famer.
BLUFF: So ElkY, tell us a little bit about your upbringing.
BG: Well, I have a brother and a sister; they’re twins and ten years older than me. When I was three years old, my brother had a computer and we played a lot of computer games. I really liked them, so we were playing from when I was three.
BLUFF: What sort of games did you play?
BG: I don’t remember the exact games back then, but I remember I loved all of them. I would play anything. When I got an internet connection in 1998, I got into gaming in a much bigger way. It was much more interesting than when you play against a computer. Playing against computers was fun but got boring a little too fast; but when you play against humans there’s much more competition. You can try new sorts of strategies all the time and everything becomes much more of a mind game. If you play against a computer it’s just a game, but if you play against a human, it’s a mind game, and I just loved that.
It was natural for me to move to Korea, because that is where the competition was the best. When I found I had the opportunity to make a living out of gaming, I just moved to Korea right away. I had the chance to take part in a major tournament, the World Cyber Games, in 2001.
BLUFF: We’d seen some footage on YouTube of your exploits in Korea, with masses of screaming fans, TV cameras – what was that like?
BG: Oh that was really crazy. I grew up just outside of Paris and lived in the countryside for a few years before I moved to Korea. It was a great experience – really exciting. It was like something completely new. It’s such a strange feeling; I mean, you’re just sitting there playing a computer game and people are cheering for you, supporting you.
BLUFF: And you’re looking for a place to stay in London now? Are you moving here permanently?
BG: Well, I’m going to move to London, mainly because of the EPT schedule. Making all these long fl ights is tiring, you get jet lagged and stuff, and there are so many EPTs coming up I can’t keep traveling back and forth from Korea. That’s a lot of wasted time. I decided this year I want to play more live tournaments so I won’t have much time to go back to Korea. I do love the country, though, and I hope I will be able to move back in a few years because I have a lot of friends there.
I think it’s very good to live with other poker players because it helps improve your game. You can always discuss hands with your friends more naturally like that.
BLUFF: Obviously you had a really big reputation as an online gamer. When was the beginning for poker?
BG: I was in South Korea and I was chatting with a friend on MSN and he told me he’d started to play poker. I was like, “Wow, poker? What’s that all about? You’re gonna lose…” I thought it was a luck game, and I didn’t know anything then about the skill in the game. So then I started playing a bit myself on PokerStars. I started playing for fun in the beginning, but it was a crazy feeling because I was there playing other people for money. It was a really easy game to learn – I learned the basics really quick. But even when you know the rules, you can constantly improve and try to change your strategies. I loved the concept of the game right away.
For about two months it was just a hobby, and I didn’t even listen to my friend when he gave me advice. He was saying stuff like “Don’t play this hand, it’s bad,” and I was like “What? Every hand is good!” It was just a lot of fun.
After a couple of months I started to take it a lot more seriously. I was still playing video games for a living, but after about six months playing poker I was doing so much better. I qualifi ed on PokerStars for some live tournaments for the fi rst EPT season, in Deauville and Vienna. Then I qualifi ed for the World Series.
When I took up live tournaments, it was another dimension, too. I like to play online tournaments, but when you play live tournaments, it’s much more like a competition.
BLUFF: Your fi rst slice of poker history was when you became PokerStar’s fi rst “SuperNova” player…
BG: Well I really love challenges, so when I saw on the PokerStars news that they were going to have SuperNova players, I was like “Wow, I should try to be the fi rst person to get that.” It was a challenge for me – yeah – so I played a lot. It took me about two weeks and it was tough because the games weren’t as high as they are now. It was something I really wanted to do, just to prove to myself I could be the fi rst one to do it.
BLUFF: So you were starting to win seats in some live tournaments. What kind of adjustments did you make to your game when you switched between online and live play?
BG: I think the fi rst thing I noticed when I played live events is the buy-ins were much bigger, and the way people were thinking about the tournaments was really different. If you play a few tournaments at home for 50 bucks, people are much less afraid of busting out because you only lose a couple of hours, you lose next to nothing. When you play the big buy-in live tournaments, people try to survive longer, for a lot of different reasons. You have to take advantage of that. People are less likely to bluff, they are less willing to gamble in the big tournaments – it’s like that for most of the live players anyway. A lot of the internet players think the same, no matter if it’s a big live tournament or big online one. Live players are less likely to gamble in the early stages.
In live tournaments you get a lot more time to think about every decision and you have a lot of things you need to watch. When I fi rst started playing in live tournaments I didn’t watch the players so much, I was just looking at the betting patterns and my cards. I was acting really quickly because I had to online. Playing live, I really had to take a bit more time, and think about all of the information at the table.
BLUFF: Tell us a little bit about how you became a Team PokerStars member. How did it feel when they approached you?
BG: Well, I won a satellite on Poker- Stars to an EPT event, back in 2005, I think, so they sponsored me for the event. Then I won a few more live seats through PokerStars – in 2006 I won six seats for the World Series, and I was the most active player on the site as well. So that’s how PokerStars approached me – they wanted someone to present some of the video game stuff, and someone who was really active on the site. I was really happy to join the team because I think this is the best online site. They have a great interface and so many good players already. It was really helpful for me to be able to talk to Joe Hachem or Greg Raymer, as there was a lot I could learn from them.
BLUFF: As responsible poker journalists, we always have to try and get a little bit of gossip…
BG: Well, we don’t get the chance to go out that often as a team, but Joe and I were in Barcelona, and when we were at dinner we were making side bets on everything! We had overs and unders on how much the bill would come to for the table, or the name of the waitress…
BLUFF: You’ve obviously been a very successful player so far, but perhaps your crowning moment so far was the PCA win in the Caribbean.
BG: It was a great tournament just to come to. One of my friends won last year – Ryan Daut. He is another former gamer. Before the tournament I had been on holiday with my family and hadn’t played that much poker, so I was feeling really good before going to the PCA. I was confi dent and the fi rst day was a smooth ride. I got up to 120,000 just by dominating my table. I had some good timing with the cards as well.
The second day was good, as well. I got up to 150,000 in chips with about 300 players left, and Ryan came up to rail me and said he wanted to buy one percent of me for $600. I thought it was good price. I mean, I wasn’t even in the money yet and I was barely above the average. So I was like, “Sure, let’s do it!” Then I ended up winning the tournament (laughs)! Maybe it was lucky for me…
BLUFF: Coming to the fi nal table, you had a lot of support there, but you also had one of the most hottest players in the world in the form of David Pham. How did you evaluate your chances coming into that fi nal table?
BG: I always liked my chances because David was on my right. It was important for me to either get a seat far away from him or directly on his left. I was really able to control his aggression well. If he was on my left I could have found him reraising me every time. He plays a lot of hands and plays them very aggressively, so he’s a really hard player to play against, especially when you’re out of position. I was lucky to have position on him on the fi nal table.
BLUFF: And there was a key hand where you’d opened from UTG and the fl op came K-Q-5, with two hearts and one diamond. You had the Ad 2d and picked up the nut fl ush draw on the turn.
BG: Yeah, that’s right. I bet 400,000 from UTG and David Pham called from the big blind. He checked the fl op, and I checked behind him. David was leading out a lot against other players, and when he was calling out of the big blind he led out a lot of the time. So when he checked the fl op, it was the sort of board that might have hit me and I thought he could check-raise, so I checked behind. The turn was the Jd. When he checked the turn again, I thought it would be a strange way for him to play a big ace because the board was so dangerous, and he’d probably want to protect his hand. I fi red out thinking he would lay down his hand, and when he moved in I was really surprised. I thought it was possible he was on a combo draw that was smaller than mine, or he could have been on a total bluff as well. I fi gured I had 12 outs, and I ruled out A-K and A-Q because of the way he just called pre-fl op.
If I lost the hand I still would have more chips than he did, and I felt he was the most dangerous opponent on the table. I think it was very important for me to call there because if I fold and let him win this pot, he’s going to be a very tough player to play against, no matter what. However, if he’s out it’s going to be a massive relief for me. I was much more confi dent playing the other players because they were much more straightforward and gave me more room to breathe.
BLUFF: When the 7d came on the river, did you think that you had the tournament wrapped up?
BG: I didn’t think that way because in Copenhagen I fi nished second after having a massive chip lead. This time I really tried to stay calm and said to myself that, in poker, nothing is done until the last card. This time I really wanted to be on top of it. My friends who were watching me were already celebrating after I knocked out David Pham, and they were putting the other guy on tilt more than me.
BLUFF: On the fi nal hand you called really fast with the pocket pair and must have been relieved to see your opponent only had the one overcard. How nerve wracking was it being fi ve cards away from winning the Championship?
BG: Oh yeah, I was thinking “Please, one last time let my hand hold up!” I wasn’t all in too many times during the tournament, perhaps twice on Day 3 and once on Day 4. Because the structure was so good, I was really trying to avoid huge confrontations like that. When I saw my opponent had 9-3 [to ElkY’s pocket eights], I was so happy. I knew he had to have a bad hand because, when I asked him how much it was, he kept looking down; he began to stutter and couldn’t really say how much he had left. He’d realized he’d had too much to move all in and that he’d made a mistake. I was sure I had to call there.
When the board bricked out, it was an incredible feeling. The four of hearts came on the river, and it was just crazy. It was too hard to describe.
BLUFF: Who would you like to play against on a fantasy WSOP fi nal table – if you could choose anyone?
BG: Phil Ivey, for sure. Stu Ungar because he was such a legend, Daniel Negreanu… this is tough! Patrick Antonius, I guess, as well. I’ve never actually played against him – or Phil Ivey, so I am really eager to play against them. Doyle Brunson would also have to be on there.
BLUFF: And our fi nal question: What is the most important bluff you’ve ever made, in life or poker?
BG: Well, I think it was a bluff in Copenhagen at the EPT (Editor’s note: Type “elky” + “toth” into Youtube.com for this one. It’s pure comedy). But the problem was I hit a gutshot on the river when I was going to bluff any spade that came, so I wasn’t even bluffi ng any more! I did make one really nice bluff in the Caribbean, actually. In Day 2, I had 10s 9s on the last hand, and one big stacked LAG from MP. He limped in for 4,000 and someone raised to 15,000 from the button. He hadn’t played a hand in ages, and I just felt that he was making a move. It looked like the best spot for him to make a squeeze play, being the hand before the break as well. So I called, planning to check-raise all in on any fl op. It came Q-5-5 rainbow, which was a good fl op, as I could have literally any two cards there. I checked and he fi red out about 18,000 I think, and left himself about 20,000 behind. I moved in and he looked really annoyed, and he ended up folding.
I didn’t show the bluff but it gave me a lot of confi dence for the rest of the tournament. I didn’t make many moves at all in this tournament because there were so many internet players and a lot of them know how I play, so I couldn’t make as many moves as normal. The times I did, though, seemed to work well.
