This is a Blog Journaling Elky's progress to become a Pro Poker Player. Currently he is the reigning Pro Gamer Champion at Pokerstars and has participated in the EPT. This blog is for those gamers who are interested in what he is doing and where he is going.

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Eek, ok, its been a really long time, so first a really quick recap on what has happened to our happy French online poker master, Elky.

Well, he joined Team Pokerstars for one thing, ...is this a big thing? It was for Elky as he pretty much ended up refusing to play on any other site anyway(s), plus I guess he missed being part of a professional gaming organization. In anycase, with Elky part of Team PokerStars (TPS) he ended up playing in a whole lot of EPT events.

As for now, he continues to play with on TPS with the terms of his contract very confidential (I should know because I negotiated his contract) and as many as you may have know that he came in 2nd place in the past EPT Copenhagen event. I think he won about 400k USD, so yes, he had some pocket money to say the least.

Right now he is at WSOP and hanging out with all our friends (unfortunately as I am not a professional poker player I am stuck here in Korea at my corporate desk job) Giyom, Rekrul and Smuft. So I was told by them that he is 'owning' as well as Rekrul, as to Giyom and Smuft, not sure, but I'm sure i'll find out when they get back.

Oh on that note, Rekrul won the 5000 USD heads up and got himself a braclet, as I know he completely dominated it and rocked the wsop world. You know, him playing against Korean gangsters at 3 am in the morning really toughened him up and so I guess playing some overweight or underage players acting tough...well really didn't intimidate him at all. Anyway(s), Rekrul said that I could be his manager, yippie I get to take care of both Elky and Rekrul now hehe, but actually they dont' need a manager they need a financial advisor cause i think Rekrul pulled in 400k as well.

well, the entire www.dogsofpoker.com site didnt' work out because (a) we did the programing in Korea and it was a site in English and (b), we really didnt know what we wanted to do with the site so (c) we just left it alone!
Well sometimes things like that happen, but maybe i'll just make a Elky/Rekrul Poker blog and just update it once a month instead. Soo.....

I guess many of you who are new to poker and perhaps came across this blog are wondering, how the hell are they so good, what makes them so damn special. Well after 3 years now of being around poker players (and not being a hardcore player myself) is just commitment. I mean they don't play poker like a hobby or game, I mean, they really put the time into it. It is a simple as that if you have some talent. Of course its not an easy road, and how the hell does anyone know if they have talent or not...

From my observations I can say 5 points:
1. If they don't understand why something happened in the game (as they were learning) they always tried to figure it out exactly what were the reasons, they didn't let anything go and just keep playing, but always figured out what the hell happened.
~I guess its the difference between intelligent practicing and just going through the motions. As near as I can tell there is a guy we know'Kyopo' who plays after work every day and basically Rekrul and everyone says, 'he is a fish', cause he keeps making the same mistakes over and over again (but he is getting better although minimally so). I think he simply doesn't have the mentality (or can we say talent) for being a top poker player- but that doesn't mean he isnt making money.
2. Money in the game can't mean much to you. When Rekrul or Elky are down and they need to refill, its just a click of button, they keep their stack to the maximum always without any thought that they had just lost X amount of money. I mean, they see money as a tool to make more money, not as something they use to buy things with or spend. You need money to make money eh?
3. They have other poker friends. Way back when, Elky, Rekrul, Giyom, Smuft and myself use to all live together, I got married and took a corporate job and they kept on doing their thing. But you know, being part of a strong poker community of guys who are competitive, well it helps a lot. Not a community of guys who are fish, and keep chasing the deposit bonus and give you tips how to do that, but a community of real players who have real discussions as to what you did wrong. Most of these discussions tell to be quite short.
"SICK BEAT" Elky;
"What did you have" Rekrul
"mumble, mumble" Elky
"What did you expect?" Rekrul
"...SICK BEAT" Elky

What I mean to say is that, in poker you have a lot of emotional outbreaks, but when you did something wrong, its ok to say, 'sick beat' but the problem is when people actually try to justify their action as something that was right. Elky, Rekrul and those guys, they dont' defend themselves if they made a mistake,
"damn, lol, I shouldn't have been playing drunk that time" Rekrul
"18, ok im talking a break im going on super tilt, lets go eat some steak Dave" Elky
"IM ON TILT" Elky as he stares into the monitor with his death ray powers.

In elky's case he just releases his emotional outburst and keep on playing and in Rekrul's case he just keeps playing and stops when he feels like going out for a drink and when he comes back, he stops when he knows he is past is optimal ability (drunk or not drunk). But they never make excuses or justify their lose, either they learn from it, or just keep on trucking.

omg...im tired, (i broke my finger during rugby practice 2 weeks ago, so typing is a bit tough), so I'll leave it at 3, but hopefully I'll pick up the last 2 points before the end of the year ^.~

MightyAtom