Bertrand Grospellier(credit: Poker Stars Blog)
Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier is a member of Team PokerStars. The former professional video gamer was the first player to achieve Supernova and Supernova elite status at the site’s VIP Club. At the end of 2007, Grospellier turned in a second-place performance at the EPT Copenhagen and admits that he was “devastated.” For this competitive spirit, noting less than first place is acceptable.
This time, Grospellier got his wish. He took down the final table at the 2008 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, winning $2,000,000 in the process. This, by far, is his biggest tournament win to date. He defeated 1135 other players en route to the title, including an aggressive final table which included David “The Dragon” Pham, the 2007 CardPlayer Player of the Year. In the last thirteen months, Pham has made 12 final tables and won four tournaments.
As final table play got underway, Pham had a commanding chip lead. It looked as though The Dragon would slay his competition. However, from the beginning of the action, it appeared as though this Dragon might have faced some serious competition from a different kind of animal.
Not too long after the 10 am EST start of the final table, Richard “Ricky” Fohrenbach, who used a pillow at one point so he could sit high enough in his chair for the cameras, sang his swan song. Holding a pair of jacks, Fohrenbach, a Boston College student, was called by Grospellier, aka ElkY. Grospellier had A,K in the hole and hit a king on the flop, taking Fohrenbach out in eighth position.
Grospellier then went on to double through Pham in a battle of the blinds. This gave the Frenchman the chip lead. At that point, ElkY was virtually unstoppable. He sent Christian Harder, a 20 year old student from Annapolis, MD who took the semester off to play poker, to the rail. Harder was on the short stack and went all-in with pocket sevens. Unfortunately Grospellier woke up with pocket hooks. He held on to eliminate the youngster in seventh place. Harder received a decent payday of $200,000 for his efforts, which makes us wonder if he’ll return to Salisbury College and finish his degree.
Apparently, ElkY’s appetite for chips wasn’t satisfied yet. The hungry man gobbled up Joe “Big Egypt” Elpayaa’s stack. Elpayaa, a 19 year old from Chicago who has been playing live events in Europe such as the 2007 Irish Open, got knocked out in sixth with a K,J.
The Dragon made a stand. The 41 year old professional player who was born in Vietnam put professional sports bettor, Craig Hopkins of the UK, out of his misery in fifth place. Luckily, Craig has his lovely wife Lindsey there to support him and we’re pretty sure that the $450,000 he earned for his efforts will be put to good use.
Unfortunately Pham would be the next to go. The man, who sits 23rd on the all-time money list, called Grospellier’s 400k under the gun preflop raise from the big blind. The flop was Kh,Qh,5d. Both players checked. The turn was a jack of diamonds. Pham checked and ElkY bet 700k. At this point, Pham pulled out the rest of his stack and shoved it in the middle. This cooled ElkY’s jets. However, after a few minutes of thought, he called the additional 2.5 million chips and flipped over Ad,2d for a nut-flush draw. The river brought a seven of diamonds, giving Grospellier the checkmark and Pham, who held Qc,5c, the rail.
Ouch!
Kris Kuykendall, who celebrated his 25th birthday the day before the final table was played, headed home next. The professional poker player and wrestling coach – he does that in his spare time – came up against Hafiz Khan, who, up to this point, had been pretty quiet. Kuykendall’s K,Q was good, but not good enough to defeat Khan and his A,J.
As heads-up play got underway, ElkY had more than a 2-to-1 chip lead with 16.2 million of the big ones. Early on in the match-up, the 26 year old Frenchman hit a set of aces on the flop with his A,7 in the hole to widen the gap. Khan, a 33 year old former software engineer turned poker pro from Stockton, California, got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. On the final hand of the match, he moved in with the rag-hand bluff of 9,3. Grospellier, who held pocket eights, made the call and became the 2008 PCA champ.
Here are the final results:
1) Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier - $2,000,000
2) Hafiz Khan - $1,094,976
3) Kris Kuykendall - $800,000
4) David “The Dragon” Pham - $600,000
5) Craig Hopkins - $450,000
6) Joe Elpayaa - $300,000
7) Christian Harder - $200,000
8) Richard Fohrenbach - $150,000