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

WOW its been a really long time since we posted anything

Wow,
ok I'm sorry if anyone still was checking this blog out and it got blogged out...

reasons why were because me, elky, giyom and rekrul, started a poker community site instead called: Dogs of poker www.dogsofpoker.com

So its like a photoblog community.

I can't say that that is really updated as its still in beta development, but if you've come to site,
you can read what is here
then check out the new site.

but basically:

Elky entered into WSOP 2005, EPT 2006 Denmark, France, & Monte Carlo,

he did alright, but you know the tournament scene is tough, but PokerStars was really good about sponsoring him....so now Elky is in...

Netherlands.

Yup he is in training, and plus the fact he had to be in Europe for like 2 months.

But im going there in late April and we might come back together to Korea.

k, come on over to the new site!

Mightyatom

Elky's friend Rekrul on his poker experience

This post was taken from teamliquid.net, a starcraft community site. It is by rekrul who is one of elky's friends and fellow starcraft player here in Korea. this is his experience so far in poker.

"This is a word of warning about poker. Most people hide their losses and exaggerate how much they win. Poker is incredibly hard and everyone should not jump into it so fast. Someone on PM asked me some detailed questions about my poker career and I wrote a pretty long response so I figured I'd let everyone read it. The point of this should be to warn you all about poker and let you know just how hard it is and how long it takes to succeed. I hope it will discourage most of you and encourage a select few.

Anyways enjoy:I started poker about two years ago. Dudey (ilnp mockturtle whatever) came to me, elky, nazgul, and NTT on b.net and told us to download this poker program to watch him play a tournament. At first the game seemed rather dull to me with a lot of luck involved. But I was very very lucky to know Dudey, he bludgeoned it into my skull that poker is much like starcraft except with money. The skilled player will win. Plus he gave me an outlined detail of what hands to play preflop from what positions in order to play "tight." With this knowledge I tackled the penny tables for a long long long time. I would get furious at the 10$ pots I lost AA vs KQo allin preflop to trip queens and then I would tilt and constantly lose my money. For the first 3 months I lost 450$ playing penny tables and a little bit of .1.25 (.05/.1 did not exist at that time) on Stars. I never really dreamed that poker could be used as a source of income, especially one that would allow me to make in one month more than my parents make in an entire year combined after 5 years of university each.

Anyways I didn't play poker a lot, maybe 1-3 hours a day because I was still very much involved with starcraft at that time and was focused on winning WCG USA (which i did that year yay). After about a year of playing I had managed to cashout maybe 2-3k by playing the .01/.02 - .25/.5 tables but I still got a factory job for 8.50$/hour before getting ready to go to college. It was my first real job and I went into it thinking that it was something I had to do for my life. But as I looked around at all these hillbilly unintelligent people working at this HONDA plant I was like, what the HELL AM I DOING? I have much more potential than this, sure life is hard but it shouldn't be that hard for me.Anyways I started college and thats when I started playing poker A LOT. I would play online several hours per day and then play for 4-8 hours every night in my dormitory 20$ buyin game.

I was making enough money to get by and help pay for college books and pay for any little random items I'd want on a whim, but still I never ever envisioned myself being able to play poker pro. I still really felt like I had to do the usual thing...go to college and get a degree and get a real job and play poker on the side as a hobby for a little more income. But halfway through college I had sort of an epiphany.

Every day I would sit there and think about life and why I was at this crappy university doing stuff in school that I have no desire or reason to do. Why do all American kids follow this same path? I didn't want to be normal. This was actually right around the time that Elky told me about a spot being open on the hexatron dream team. I realized that I hated school, did not give a crap about my classes, and that all I was doing was poker. So I decided to step outside the box by dropping out of college and going to korea to play starcraft.

This was around April 04. By that time I had earned a total of around 10-13k off of poker 3k of which was from a 3rd place finish in a real life ohio championship of poker tournament. Looking back at one hand in that tournament makes me realize how little control we have in life. Life is like a river pushing you forward all you can do is sway your boat a little bit in whatever direction you want, but ultimately the river is going to pull you along (boat, river, pushing...blah puns not intended). The hand is this: at one point with 20 people left I was short stacked and had to go allin with 77 and got called by AK, AKx flop, x turn, river 7. He was the chip leader and would have busted me if I didn't land that 7 on the river.

When I came to Korea I had a total of 3000$ to my name. If I didn't have that 3k I would have never came to korea. If I never came to Korea I'm fairly sure I would have never truly succeeded at poker like I am now because I would have never had the needed pressure that forced me to succeed. Still...by the time Korea came I viewed poker as something that could keep me going here while I tried to become good at starcraft and get a salary. When my funds were running low I started playing poker again and I made just enough to survive in korea by playing maybe 1-2 hours a day.

Then as my korea report says everything went all bad and I was low on money. I went two weeks without losing at all. I played .5/1 with 400$ made that into 1000...played 1/2 made that into 3000...played 2/4 made that into 7k...then stayed on 2/4 3/6 NL for a long time. Yeah I wasn't even following my own bankroll management advice...I was very desperate and lucky that I did not take many bad beats.This is when I realized it was possible to make bank just by playing an internet card game. Plus I was seeing elky make ridiculous amounts of money too. I made 35k over the course of 2 months on 2/4NL and realized I needed to quit starcraft, use that money to move out and get my own place, and get serious about poker.

So I did that...but once again ran into some trouble. I was so free because I had my own place and didn't have any manager hovering over me that I was out drinking every night and going to clubs. When I woke up every day I was so hung over and tired that my mind couldn't really focus...I was still up overall but at one point my online bankroll was 3k and I had 12k debt with only 5k in my bank account in USA that I could use. I had spent so much money here that I was virtually broke if you considered the debt I had from poker loans during my bad 2 week streak.

Epiphany #2: I needed to stop going out for a while. I did that and began the run of my life. I was winning day after day after day. Killed off my debt and got up to 15k bankroll and started playing 5/10 NL. I was improving as a player even more than I had ever imagined. Then after some more earnings I moved up to 5/10 + 10/20NL and made over over 120k in two months.Basically what all that says is: I did not try to make myself a poker pro, I was just someone who really enjoyed it and saw it as a game of skill, a skill that I wanted to master. I had no delusions of grandeur and I still thought I was going to have to get a real job the "normal" way. But the circumstances in my life (Hating college + being in korea but SC being horrible + wanting to stay here + having no money left almost) all forced me to get good. I had lots of pressure and all I did was think about poker and how to get better. Somehow it worked out.

So this is what you need to realize: Odds are you will not make much at poker. All of my starcraft friends who have been playing poker as long as me all still are decent at best, they can win a little bit and think they are good but considering the time they put into it and the stakes they play, they are pretty bad. Of course there are other SC players like Elky who are doing very well, but the vast majority are not. If you want to win at poker this is what you need. You need extreme patience.

If theres a rule to follow when it comes to bankroll management you need to have the personality to follow it no matter how angry you get or how small of stakes it feels if you have to move down. You have to be emotionless. I can lose an 8.3k pot when i'm a 3:1 favorite and honestly not care at all. You have to be the kind of person that takes satisfaction in being mentally superior to your opponent and view a pot like that where you got allin and they lucked out as a win for you, not a loss. As long as you're playing properly and getting your money in when you're ahead thats all that matters.

And realize...I'm one of the most successful bw players at poker (well top 10 probably there are alot of players that started before me that are doing amazingly well too but they weren't really known bw players) and I have not been doing it very long. I think I'm very good and know how to win but realistically It's taken two years and I've only been good enough to pull huge money for 3-4 months. Nothing is banked yet, who knows I could lose it all somehow still? I can only really claim to be a pokergod if I can manage to keep this up for another year and make 500k atleast.

I've come so far and been through so much poker-wise yet still can only say I'm in the infancy of my 'career'.Ideal personality for poker: Calm, Emotionless, Confident, Intelligent, Realistic. But most imporant is seeing it as a game and not as a way of making money. I failed at starcraft because after a short time I didn't enjoy it. When you don't enjoy it you can't be good at it. Even though earlier I said poker is a way of making money and should not be viewed as fun, what should be fun is outplaying/outsmarting the other guy, not raking in a 5k pot. If you're a hot-head or you're not able to do simple-medium math computations in your head very fast do not play poker.

If your mind does not automatically remember every single little detail and bet amount of every hand you played during the day, don't play poker. If you have played starcraft for a really long time and could never really get the hang of the strategy in it...do not play poker. But if you think you have what it takes go for it. Just take it incredibly slow, move up as slow as you possibly can, and perhaps the 2015 WSOP final table will be 100% TL.netters.So, be careful.

There were several critical moments in my career that if they did or didn't happen I could have ended up broke. Sometimes great players go on bad beat streaks for weeks at a time and if you cannot handle this it can seriously screw up your life. I am LUCKY as HELL that I did not have any of these periods at certain points of my poker career. And I am also very very lucky to be friends with lots of other poker players so I could attain infinite loans from them in order to win back my losses. Most of you will not have this.Beware fishes.Thank you for reading and good luck.
"

Elky's Seat at the WSOP

Well, sorry for the delay in the updates, Elky has been playing online at pokerstars like a mad man and his bank roll is getting pretty big at this point. He is also acting as an inspiration to his friends who got pissed off that Elky was doing so well, so they've all move up in the limits as well.

Things have been generally up for Elky, in March he won 40k, but in the first week of April he was up about 15k, but then when on tilt on lost 40k in a day. eek. But he's back up to speed now and is doing quite well. Check him out playing on pokerstars, here is there playing the maximum of 5 tables, but its too bad that he can't play 10 anymore, but I think its really making him focus a bit more. ^^

Elky made to the pokerstars pop up news of winning his seat at pokerstars at this years World Series of Poker. Actually a French TV station, TF1 may either come to Korea or LasVegas to film him play, its a big deal as Elky is still France's own beloved gamer so they thinks he is something to be proud of. ^^ But its great, Elky may have a big retirement party here in Korea for the French crew when they come in sometime in June.

At this point, Elky is obviously a much strong online poker player, maybe he will be the top online player, but while live tournament play is a bit boring for him, he is really getting into enjoying the company of the international community of poker players. I think he may start to ask for some lessons from some poker greats, but they're pretty expensive and they also sometimes work on a winning percentage take from tournaments. But Elky's still young enough to make mistakes on his own and figure somethings out yet.

What im going to attempt to do get get a daily diary from Elky of what he's been up to and get it posted up here every 3 days or so. Its not like we're not trying to update this site, but since the EPT finished up, online gaming has been where its at. But I think people are becoming just as interested in his online gaming style, so hopefully i'll get some screenshots up.

There is one great moment last month where he was playing heads up for 5k and they guy he was playing against fell asleep and folded every hand. So Elky won 5k by using his skill of pressing the call button every hand and won. I kid you not. ^^

So I guess the lesson for today is; if you're gonna donate to the Elky fund, just play heads up with him and go to sleep. Thanks ^^.

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 ^^