Elky Mannered by Lady Luck & some balding fat guy

Well, I talked to Elky on-line right after he had gone to his room completely pissed off about his loss.

Well out of 290 odd players he came in 35th place, not bad, except that Elky got mannered pretty hard core by this guy, Pascal Perrault who calls himself the PP Bandit. Thing is that this guy gets lucky, so lucky he eliminates 3 of the top poker young guns, Elky, Justin Bonomo & Noah Boeken. I got a description of the event off the EPT poker blog.

"Perrault is a murderer. Check that. He's a serial killer. I've seen the victims in the morgue as proof.

Victim: Elky
Elky held JJ. The Bandit held KT. The Bandit wins. That's where the serial killing began.

Victim: Justin Bonomo
Perrault raised pre-flop to 7000 (a little more than 3x the BB). Justin Bonomo made it 17,000 to go. Perrault pushed all-in and Bonomo called. The Bandit showed KQo offsuit. Bonomo, who had built his stack back to a respectable level was happy to show pocket kings. Enter: carnage. A queen on the flop and queen on the turn sent Bonomo home. I can't describe the look on his face. Later, I suggested he go get four drinks at once. His eyes, still glazed from the beat, swept the room and settled on nothing. I decided it was an inappropriate time to break out the ever-trite, "That's poker" and let Bonomo wander on.

Victim: Noah Boeken

It seemed as if no one could stop The Bandit. Just a few hands after nearly doubling up with a set of twos, Noah Boeken raised the pot by 3x the big blind to 9000. The Bandit pushed all in and Boeken almost immeditely called. The Bandit showed a pair of nines. Boeken slammed his pair of tens on the table.Seconds later the dealer laid out the flop. Right in the middle of it sat a nine. Boeken was out and The Bandit stole another players chips.All the other players at the table muttered in unison, "Unbelievable. Unbelievable."I can't count the victims. And I have a hard time counting the Bandit's chips.I've seen so much blood. So much blood..."

You can read the full story on-line at the Europeanpokertour.blogspot.com and check out other EPT related stories as well there.

Thing is about no-limit holdem poker is that there really is this element of lucky that you just can't get away from. In tournament poker, the trick is to continually take advantage of your small advantages and gains and the occasional winner; but to maintain your stack till you can get to the final table....well, thing is with no limit holdem, its no limit, so at any time some guy can just place it all on lady luck. And this PP Bandit did just that 3 times and cleaned out 3 top 'young guns' players.

Well, Elky was so pissed off, he couldn't even type properly; then it was one word curse words for about 5 more minutes; and yeah he was unlucky as well as the 2 other guys who quickly followed him.

He did make it to the end of the regular day 2 and was in it for the final fight to get to the final table; he says that he played some of the best poker of his life and was so completely focused, but sometimes lady luck helps the fat old parisian rather that the young sexy one. Don't worry Elky, you still have your great looks!

I think in a couple of days Elky will be posting his thoughts on the entire event as well as starting to contribute directly to this blog on a regular basis.

Day 2 at Vienna EPT Close, But Not Close Enough

Well, at the end of day 2, Elky is out. But I dont' have the numbers yet, but I do think he finished in the top quarter of the tournament. From the EPT web blog.

"For those watching the young guns, Noah Boeken and Elky have both busted out, as well."

But as this is his 2nd major offline tournaments, its a definate improvement from his last tournament in Deauville. Well give him encouragment as he is one of the first starcraft gamers to make it thus far.

He will be coming back to Korea on March 19th, to further train his on-line money making abilities while planning for the next EPT season. Hopefully Elky will be updating this blog with his own thoughts and tips when he gets back.

Likely I'll be speaking with him on the phone tomorrow, so I'll post his retrospective thoughts on Vienna EPT.

Elky in Vienna Owning ^^ 

EPT Vienna ELKY 12th Place Chip Leader!!!

After Day one of the European Poker Tour in Vienna, ELKY is going strong with the 12th largest stack in the tournament.

This is significant as there are only 83 players that remain after day one from over 287. Tournament playing and online playing is fundamentally different in that the size of your stack matter a lot because there is no further buy-ins (meaning you can't add chips). While this seems super obvious, the trick is to continually build your stack up during the course of the tournament, but also not go on tilt.

This actually happened to Elky for one of the buy in tournaments he played (500 Euros buy in) on the last day of the Deauville EPT event. He was nearly double the chip leader and the players were down to about 35, and he was confident. So he started used the 1 k chips and in two over invested plays he lost half his stack. In that particular tournament he came in 9th place winning 2000 Euros, which wasn't bad, but had he just held in there until the final table with his huge stack, then he could have won the 40,000 euros.

Well I think he's learned his lesson. hope so anyway(s), he's playing right now and so we'll find out how he is doing, but he is definately improving, so wish him luck if you catch him on msn, especially if he wins and gets to go to Monte Carlo for really big money.

1st Day Chip leaders

1. KHARITONOV Denis 146,875
2. ROGERS Jeffrey David 119,175
3. PURO Mika 115,475
4. SMITH Luke 97,200
5. LANDAUER Lothar 81,600
6. PHAM Xuyen 79,050
7. COOPER Robert 76,425
8. WALSH Jennifer 74,675
9. SCHIFFMANN Josh 71,425
10. TOLNAI Tibor 66,075
11. SANEJSTRA Joachim 64,650
12. GROSPELLIER Bertrand (Elky) 61,650

Tournament Director Thomas Kremser just announced the payouts for the E-WSOP. Out of 297 players, 27 will walk away with cash in their pockets. The final eight who make the TV table will be fighting for these prizes (in Euros):
1) 184,500
2) 101,400
3) 51,800
4) 40,500
5) 34,500
6) 28,800
7) 23,000

Gaming & Poker Gaming

Well, I just wanted to write this cause this poker blog will likely be viewed by many gamers who may or may not be warm to the idea of Elky not being as active in the gaming community and moving away from Pro-Gaming. I think I'm qualified to address this cause I'm one of Elky's flat mates and I have some experience in both the Pro Gaming and the Poker gaming world.

I think for Elky, he isn't like a regular gamer or even regular person. Not to say that he is better because he does have his faults, but Elky has really spectacular powers of intense concentration/focus and observation. For instance when we go work out, this crazy mo-fo who hasn't played any sport (except for tennis, like a few times) works out like nothing else in the world exists. He runs for 10 km, then works out for another hour until he is soaked in sweat (like he is drenched or got out of a shower). And when he gets into a routine, nothing can stop this guy from improving and just doing it. Also, I have a friend who is a Muay Thai master, truly a bad mo-fo, and so I asked him to show Elky a low kick. And so my friend showed him. Elky tried it once, my friend showed him again, and Elky got it perfectly the second time.

My friend was amazed because Elky does not have the most athletic looking form (sorry Elky! you're still good looking!) but he was able to do the physcial mechanics on the second try, which is freaking difficult to do properly. So when it comes to gaming, Elky practiced like a manic possessed, but he has always been so friendly and easy going, except when something is on the line. So for Elky its always been all or nothing. If he works out, he works out, if he plays starcraft, he plays starcraft and now he is playing poker.

So sometimes I go to work in the morning and I know that Elky has been up all night playing on-line poker, then i get home at around 7ish in the evening (and of course he is still playing) and by 11ish, he is passing out while playing 5 tables, but still playing and then finally around 3 in the morning he goes to take a nap, and wakes up by 7am and starts playing again, refreshed to start another 36 hour session of having fun. Well I think people get my point.

Elky has a lot of friends, but all of his friends are from the gaming community. So he does have friends all over the world, and they mean a lot to him. So myself, Giyom and Elky we do take time to play some games together, Warcraft 3 (cause its not fun to play with them in Starcraft cause I suck) modification call DOTA. So I think that while some people might use Elky as an example of the destruction of the gaming community; i think that for Elky the situation is different in that this is his only source of income now and its the way he is a person.

It would be impossible to divorce himself from the gaming community as even it was some of his friends from the gaming community that introduced him to poker and on-line poker. I think there will be a balance for most people because poker itself is a very community based game and its fun to make a weekly home game with friends. But I think what makes it different for gamers is that; online poker can be a source of income; and it can be a source of income because gamers have a community that can support and teach one another. And that is what is happening as generally gamers who start playing poker on a causual level don't incur huge losses, but can enjoy the game as it is and not as a gambling type of adiction.

Its not to say that the risk isnt' there, cause online poker could lead to an addiction, just like starcraft was for me when i was in my grad school, I just couldnt' stop thinking, dreaming, playing starcraft even though I had a thesis due the next week, i still had to play. But, if you look at on-line poker as a game, rather than gambling, your priorities and objectives change as to why you play. No doubt, this can be a very thin line/distinction, but I think in terms of balancing poker with gaming, its very reaonsible as a lot of our gaming friends are introducing us to on-line poker and keeping an eye on us.

But i think playing for your income is something of a freedom, but also something that needs to be seriously viewed as a job and that is what Elky sees poker as. I mean you see in Korea too, the top pro gamers of yesterday when starcraft first started, some of they are still trying to get back to the top, you don't hear about them, you don't see them cause they are entering off line tournaments that are the pre tournaments to other offline tournaments that lead to a real offline tournment that will get you a chance to enter into a minor/challenger league. But its like, those pro gamers from like 4 years ago, some of them just had some talent or some new strat that people couldn't counter, but with 3 tv game stations and people like Imyohwan who take starcraft to the limit, those guys who just kinda were talented but never developed a pro gamer's work/practice ethic, they can't make it. But Elky he's got that kind of ethic, so he sees poker as a job and he takes it hard when he loses and tries every day to be better. So guess my point here is that Elky is aiming to be Pro Poker player as he was a Pro Gamer.


When i visited Elky in France, I met a lot of poker people and taked to the Pokerstars marketing staff and everything and I was surprised to find out that some people came all the way from the US as a kind of vacation/trip. They qualified online, but they paid the rest of their expenses and they only played like 5 hours a week, but they came to have fun. And I found out that some people only play on the play money sections, and never have played for money, but its fun for them.

I guess my conclusion is, Elky is being Elky, but playing poker can't take him away from the gaming community that has all of his closest friends, in fact it something else that they share between them. And as far as the gaming community goes, Im sure that a kind of symbiotic gamer/poker community is actually forming where the gaming community may not be fully engaged with those professional poker players who never hear of starcraft, but we can make our own players that we respect and root for in poker.

ELKY hurting at EPT French Open ^^ 

Elky French Press 2004 

Elky French Press 

Elky Press~ Elky in French Play Boy 2002 

ELKY~a brief tale of a French man in Korea

Well, some of you may still be interested as to why is Elky, who has now decided to focus on poker still living in Korea? After all he really isn't playing Starcraft that much considering he is Europe right now.

Most of you already know that Elky came to Korea during the 1st World Cyber Games back in 2002 and he came in second place and stayed in Korea and signed with AMD to play with the Dream Team. He made it on the Starleague twice getting 4th place and got the entire Korean gamer celbrity treatment with a fan club, fan site, recognition on the street, young girls scream his name and stalking him at tournaments and lots of gifts from fans including a weekly supply of Hersey's Chocolate Milk (he has kicked the habit of excessive chocolate milk drinking).

Well, what happened to Elky to make him stay in Korea. Maybe something like that happened to another gamer like Rekrul or Giyom. Korea is kinda like home for Elky now. He can speak Korean enough to get by, and can even conversate online in Korean. He has a long term beautiful Korean girlfriend who can speak Korean, English and Chinese fluently. He is still quite popular and recognized on the street by 100% of starcraft fan which equal about 70% of the Korean population between the ages of 14-28.

Foreigners take to Korea in two ways. Either they look down on everything in Korea and compare it to their home country; dont' bother to learn the language or appreciate the food/culture and end up hanging out in the foreigner areas with English teachers and trashy Korean chicks. or. They learn the language, find a great girlfriend from a good family, meet and get to know Koreans who are sucessful and internationally traveled and they can enjoy Korea for what it is, Korea.
Well good things in Korea that Elky likes:

Korean Night Clubs: it's expensive, but beautiful Korean women get introduced to your table by the waiters and if the introduction goes well, then conversation, drinks and dancing will follow.

Real Fire BBQ at your table: anywhere in Korea, you can eat sliced steak at your table over hot live coals.



So, getting back to Elky, Korean people adore him, they think he is polite, good looking and very skillful. Yet, the live of a Pro Gamer in Korea is brutally tough and for a while, Elky was on top of the Korean gaming scene, he was feared for his mass expansion strats. But, when poeple are practicing 8 hours a day and reviewing your replays; it gets signficantly tougher in that, even if you put your heart into it, the amount of effort you put in may amount to just a very minor improvement.

Of course the top players do that, but Elky as a French Man in Korea does prefer the finer things in life and came to a conclusion that he could play 8 hours of starcraft and still lose or play 8 hours of poker online and win 3k for the day. mmm...there are differences. To be the best player in starcraft, you'll make about 500k in total of salary and endorsements per year, but to be the 15th best player in starcraft you'll be lucky to make 2k a month in salary without endorsements.

Now that Elky's been in Korea for about 3 years now, he has a place where he shares with his other pro gaming pal, the legendary Giyom Patry "Grrr...." and also hangs out with his many Korean starcraft buddy like Rex.Spunky who just got ets from the Korean army.
Win or lose in Vienna or even winning it all at Monte Carlo, Elky has his home in Korea and will be return back at the end of March.

Elky Crowned First PokerStars ‘Pro-Gamer Challenge’ Champion

Well its old news now, but here is the posting from Pokerstars.com.
The win here, plus winning another satelite qualifier; qualifed Elky for the French Open and Vienna for the European Poker Tour (EPT) and if he wins at either of the 2 he will qualify for the grand final at Monte Carlo in Monaco from March 15-19th. Wish him luck!

Elky Crowned First PokerStars 'Pro-Gamer Challenge' Champion January 15, 2005 -
PokerStars, the second largest poker site in the world, hosted the very first PokerStars 'Pro-Gamer Challenge' on Thursday 13 January 2005, where nine of the best British and foreign professional gamers were invited to take part in a single table satellite poker tournament on PokerStars.com.

Professional gamers from Britain, Korea, Sweden and the US put their skills to the test in a live game of No Limit Texas Hold'em, with the winner receiving free entry and hotel accommodation to the 2000 euro tournament at the European Poker Tour (EPT) event in Deauville, France, 15-19th February.

Each player, well known within their dedicated field, was chosen based on their achievements in the gaming world and their passion for poker. The four British contestant were invited to the HarrowLife Internet Café in Harrow where a private area was exclusively set up for the tournament. The final battle came down to a four player shoot-out between Yorkshire's 'Mangiacapra' (Marc Mangiacapra), the experienced ElkY - Bertrand Grospellier a French pro-gamer based in South Korea, Tillerman (playing from Glasgow) and Tobes (Toby Aldridge), manager of the Four Kings pro-gamer team.

All were about even on chips when ElkY picked up a pair of aces and successfully eliminated two players - Tobey and Tillerman - in one hand, leaving him with a towering chip lead over Mangiacapra, the last remaining player. The tournament came to a rapid conclusion when ElkY's pair of tens was too strong for Mangiacapra, and the Frenchman - suitably enough - won his seat to Deauville EPT event (televised on Eurosport) in France next month.

"More and more professional gamers are using their skills to become very serious poker players and the nine players in the PokerStars 'Pro-Gamer Challenge' are no exception," says PokerStars spokesperson Conrad Brunner. "These guys are already champions in their fields, and what's interesting to us is that they are able to transfer these skills - focus, speed of thought, competitiveness, coolness under pressure - to the poker table. They are pretty awesome poker players, and we're really looking forward to seeing how ElkY does in Deauville."

Results: PokerStars Pro-Gamer Challenge
1st - ElkY - Bertrand Grospellier, Korea
2nd - Mangiacapra - Marc Mangiacapra, Britain
3rd - Tobes - Toby Aldridge, Britain
4th - Tillerman - Iain Girdwood, Britain
5th - Sujoy - Sujoy Roy, Britain
6th - Fox - Magnus Olsson, Sweden
7th - Grrr… - Guillaume 'Giyom' Patry, Korea
8th - Zero4 - John Hill, America
9th - Lakerman - Oskar Ljungstrom, Sweden

Post Deauville EPT Penses~Thoughts

When you first came to Korea to be a pro Gamer, what were your expectations? How have they changed, now that you are playing poker?

When I first got to Korea I really wanted to be very successful in gaming and try to reach my maximum level there while making a decent living. Now that I play poker I'm putting as much effort into it as I did with gaming.

The French Open was your first offline tournament, what did you feel was different or interesting?

Its much different that online poker tournament because you have the time to analyze every single information there is available to you. Also its all together going a lot slower so it's much more like an endurance tourney because it might sometimes be hard to play perfectlyfor 8 hours the same day.

What was the most exciting thing that happened to you during the French Open?

I guess it was when I went all in with pocket 66 preflop because I was short stacked, then I got called by a guy with KQs, flop brought AQ2,turn Q but i rivered a 6 for the win and the double up.

Did it feel good to play in France?

It was good to meet a lot of French players and friends at the tournament, but other than that the poker atmosphere is basically the same in other EPT events I believe. It was really great meeting some guys I've only met online.

How are you preparing for Vienna? Are you participating in any off line tournaments?

I played a few in a French poker club and also 2 side events inDeauville, I'll just try to relax more before the tourney and keepplaying my best tourney game.

In your new poker life, where does gaming fit in? Or do you feel that poker is still part of gaming?

I actually feel like poker is a very exciting and interesting game, asyou can play against more than 40 players at the same time if you usemulti-table on internet, or play 2000 players tourneys like Sunday onPokerstars. I still play a little bit computer games for fun but I don’t have that much time for it anymore.

What is the most money you ever won in a single day on-line?
18 000 USD

What is the most money you ever lost in a single day on-line?
15 000 USD

What was the best learning experience you had while playing poker?

I guess it was when I visited my friends in Vancouver and lived at hisplace for a week. He's a great player and he was coaching me sometimeswhen I was playing. It helped ma a lot at this time and I learned alot from it.

What advice could you give gamers who want to give poker a try?

I would tell them that poker brings a thrill much more exciting thanany other game, but they should start playing a conservative gamewhile practicing their mind-reading ability.

How far do you want to go in poker?
I want to go as far as possible, I really have long term expectationsof playing poker, since I’m still very young compared to most of theplayers. I hope I can take down a big offline event soon.
Do you think you'll do better in Vienna?
I really hope so, as I'll put all the chances on my side for this to happen.

ELKY WILL BE AT THE EPT VIENNA EVENT THIS MARCH 10-12.