ElkY Wins Poker's Triple Crown
World Series of Poker
/
Matthew Pitt /
15 June 2011 /
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Photo credit: PokerNews, the official photographer of the WSOP
For the past five years Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier has returned from his World Series of Poker adventures relatively empty handed. Despite winning cash the one thing that eluded him was a gold WSOP bracelet, something he and every other poker player on the planet want to win so badly. Now ElkY has realised his dream after winning Event #21 the $10,000 Seven-Card Stud Championship.
A quick scan down ElkY's Hendon Mob page and you can quickly see that he specialises in No Limit Hold'em tournaments, in fact until last week all but one of his live tournament cashes had come from Hold'em and the one that did not was a Pot Limit Omaha/Pot Limit Hold'em split event at the 2009 WSOP. Having already won the 2008 PCA (a then European Poker Tour stop) and the 2008 WPT Festa al Lago, ElkY has been one of a few people who would win the Triple Crown of titles if he won a WSOP bracelet.
Realising that his chances of WSOP glory would be greater in non-Hold'em events where the fields are naturally smaller, ElkY has begun to try his arm at new poker variants and it has certainly paid off. Last week he came 11th from 126 runners in the $10,000 Deuce-to-Seven Draw Lowball that was eventually won by John Juanda and now he has outlasted a field of the exact same size in the Seven-Card Stud Championship event.
The top 14 players reached the money in Event #21 and they read like a who's who of poker. The included Matt Hawrilenko, Matthew Glantz, Jason Mercier, Ville Wahlbeck, Sorel Mizzi, Men Nguyen, Nick Shulman, Chad Brown, Alexander Kostritsyn and John Hennigan, making ElkY's acheivement ever the more impressive, though not as impressive as his performance when heads up.
Going into the final stages of the tournament he trailed Steve Landfish by 2,260,000 to 1,520,000 chips but fell even further behind after 90 minutes when the Frenchman found himself down to just 250,000 chips, which was around four big blinds! But in true ElkY style he ran better than Usain Bolt and managed to turn it around and level the match up. He and Landfish then swapped the chip lead but the cards were with ElkY and he ultimately triumphed when made a full house by the river, whilst Landfish only improved to a lowly pair of fours.
Before he headed off to bed, ElkY wrote on his Twitter page, "So sick! Finally did it after five years of WSOP! Thanks so much for the support and best wishes!" ElkY's latest gong means that he joins Gavin Griffin, Roland De Wolfe and the recent addition, Jake Cody into the elite group of players who have won EPT, WPT and WSOP titles. Congratulations Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier!
Final table payouts
1st: Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier: $331,639
2nd: Steve Landfish: $204,924
3rd: Maxwell Troy: $128,341
4th: John Hennigan: $92,928
5th: Alexander Kostritsyn: $72,627
6th: Chad Brown: $57,917
7th: Kevin Tang: $47,032
8th: Chris Tryba: $38,812
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