Photo: Patgraham.com
Former BroodWar professional and current poker player Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier dons the white jacket of the horseheads.
Although nowadays he’s more known as a multi-title poker champion with winnings exceeding $10M, Elky began his gaming career as a StarCraft: Brood War player. One of the first foreigners to compete in South Korea’s OGN StarLeague, Elky holds numerous high finishes in progaming tournaments, including two top 4’s at WCG, a top 4 at OGN StarLeague and the gold from the 2003 Euro Cyber Games. His brief stint in Blizzard’s next RTS title, WarCraft III, also brought him success, peaking at a silver medal from OGN’s Retail League in 2002.
Elky’s subsequent involvement with poker brought him tangibly more success than progaming as the Frenchman is a bearer of the “Triple Crown”, the title given to those who manage to win three major tours in “World Series of Poker”, “World Poker Tour” and the “European Poker Tour”.
Aside from playing poker, Elky has been recently seen going back to his gaming roots, playing and streaming Hearthstone. He also took part in a Hearthstone showmatch against fellow poker player Daniel Negreanu during the 2015 World Championship finals.
It was further announced today that Elky will not stay teamless while threading the Hearthstone fields, as he’s signed with long-standing esports organization Team Liquid. For Liquid, this is the second signing in two months, after they acquired former CompLexity star David “Dog” Caero in October and Elky’s acquisition puts the roster at five players. As for the poker legend, he will represent the colors of his first ever Hearthstone team this weekend at SeatStory Cup IV.
