Sunday night, we mentioned here that ElkY had managed to win the World Poker Tour Festa al Lago. As it happened, ElkY won his first WPT event in the same year he won his first EPT event (the PCA in January of this year). Of course, we had to ask how he did it. This was his response.

by Betrand "ElkY" Grospellier

I decided to arrive in Vegas about two weeks before the start of this event so I could really be in perfect shape and condition to play it. Considering it was a six-day event, the amazing structure would make way for a lot of poker to be played. I wanted to be ready to exploit any weakness from my opponents.

My plan worked well and i managed to hang around the top of the field for the first 4 days, before taking the chip lead in Day 5 and going to the final table as a huge chip leader.

During this week I played a hand that im very proud of, probably the best hand i ever played in my life. The action had folded to Joe Ebanks. He raised to 26,000 from the button. Oddie Dardon and I called from the blinds. The flop came out J-7-5. Dardon and I checked to Ebanks, who bet 44,000. Dardon folded, but I called. A queen came on the turn and I checked again. This time, Ebanks bet 90,000.

This time, I raised to 225,000 and Dardon called. The river was a deuce. I checked and Ebanks moved all-in for 300,000. I thought for just a moment before calling with my 7-6, good against K-T. That hand moved me into the chip lead.

All in all, I'm very satisified with the way the tournament went, because I was never all-in. Also I took very few coin flips, and when I took them i had a dominating chip lead against my opponents.

This victory means so much to me. I defeated 1136 players inthe Carribean for the EPT PCA earlier in the year. They were mostly players coming from the internet world, like me. This time the field was probably the toughest I had to play. Proportionally, there were many tough seasoned live players, and being able to come on top of it once again is really an achievement I'm proud of.

It was twice as important also for me to conclude this event by a victory because during all the WCOOP I felt I played great and went very deep but every time i was down to 2 or 3 tables in a 1000 or 2000+ entrants tournament, Lady Luck was playing tricks with me and I finished a bit disappointed everytime. Coming with the chip lead at the WPT when 12 players were left, i did everything I could so that wouldnt happen.

And of course, Las Vegas really is all you hear about for poker players. Winning a tournament here was definitely one of my goals, and now that its done, I'm in a good spot for the Player of the Year race.

I feel my tournament game has never been so tuned, and my confidence level never so high, so I'm ready to finish the year as well as I started it!

See you all on PokerStars or on the tournament circuit very soon.

Since it seems impossible to overstate a performance by Team PokerStars Pro Betrand "ElkY" Grospellier, let's just lead this post with a simple understatement.

ElkY is having a pretty good year.

Without going too far into the praise and burying the lead, we should point out right now that ElkY has just won the World Poker Tour Festa al Lago at Bellagio in Las Vegas. He pockets $1.4 million after beating out a field of 368 people.

This marks ElkY's second major title of the year. He started 2008 with a win at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure for $2 million. That event marked the PCA's first time on the European Poker Tour and gave ElkY his first EPT win.

In May, ElkY took fifth place at the grand Prix de Paris for more $120,000. Last month, he nearly won a WCOOP bracelet in the $25,000 head-up championship. He finished runner-up for $320,000.

ElkY's exploits at the Festa al Lago this year did not begin with the main event. Just a few days ago, we won $55,000 for a second place finish in a $2,500 No-Limit Hold'em contest.

Then came this year's Festa al Lago main event. He sat at a final table tonight with such names as Nenad Medic and Nam Le. ElkY went into the final table with the chip lead and took it all the way to the win.

At 27 years-old, ElkY has amassed more than $4 million career live tournament winnings. He's earned most of that money in the last ten months.

Indeed, the man is having a pretty good year.

Congrats, ElkY on another great performance.

Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier had a fantastic WCOOP, cashing seven times and nearly winning a bracelet. He agreed to give us a few of this thoughts now that WCOOP is behind him.

by ElkY

Since I began playing poker online, WCOOP has become the most awaited series of the year, because it merges the great structure and big prize pool from the live tournaments, and the fast-paced action typical of the online world.

For someone like me, it's always disappointing not to win. Looking back at it, with the exception of the Triple Shootout final table where I didn't play my best due to staying awake longer than 40 hours, I don't regret any of the plays I made, especially not deep in the events.

The more I played poker lately, and the more heads-up is becoming my favorite game. It's a combination of really fast action, the fact that you can play all those hands that are trash in ring games, and that you get yourself and your opponents in marginal situations all the time. More importantly, one of my favorite aspect of the game, adaptability, is even more important in heads-up.

So when I heard about that new WCOOP event, the 25k$ heads-up, I was eager to compete. The structure was really wonderful and it brings so much depth to the game itself.

I had the toughest game of my tournament against IluvAntonius, a really strong player, but good cards at the key times brought me my 2nd win of the event. I actually felt he was outplaying me and had the edge early on, but winning key flips put me back on track and let me win the game.

Most of the games I played I started at a chip disadvantage early on, but the structure really let room for lots of play, and it allowed me to come back many times. I was fortunate enough to have a big rush of cards against Gavin Griffin in semi-finals, and while playing them very aggressively, it helped me secure a win.

As for the final heads up, after a slow start, my opponent really went on a big rush of cards and I believed I was able to lose very little against those, and even to get the chip lead back, but I believe I made a crucial
mistake when I made a call way too loose against his full house, that gave him the lead back, and I never really got the cards to get up from it.

Congratulations to all this years winners, as it takes not only skill but a lot of dedication and stamina to beat the toughest and biggest online fields ever.

I'm thrilled that the WCOOP this year was such a tremendous success, and I'm now definitely looking forward to the next edition to do even better. I have one year to improve, and even if the offline circuit keeps me busy, I'll try my best to keep playing the big PokerStars tournaments, because that's really where you learn the most.

In the world of professional gaming it pays to look a little edgy. The millions of fans who tune in to the Star League in South Korea like their World Cyber Games to put on a show, a space-aged one at that, and back in the day when man of the time Bertrand ‘ElkY Grospellier came second in the World Cyber Games, he delivered.

This is what came to mind when I saw him this morning. The Team PokerStars Pro has taken the days off between his last event and now to pamper up and today sports spiked peroxide blond hair and what I think are new sunglasses. Gone is the hoodie with the gold trim and the large sunglasses, in are a sleek jacket and open neck dress shirt and elegant shades. It’s back to space age for the Frenchman. He could easily be on the cover of a marvel comic.

ElkY keeps a neat stack, constantly adjusting it for elegance, symmetry and colour co-ordination. As any book will tell you to do he waits until the action reaches him before checking his cards and when he folds he gets back to his housekeeping. Occasionally he switches the playlist on his headphones.

These are crucial levels for everyone playing in the World Series but especially so in terms of ElkY’s game plan. I spoke to him earlier this week about his World Series this summer and asked if there was any reason for his lack of cashes. There was no concern, it all seemed acceptable.

“I either go out really fast or I go deep” he said, before promptly spinning up a short stack into a battle stack and turning it into a 16th place finish the next day. If he’s still here in 12 hours time we should have a firm indication of how much we’ll be seeing him this week.

It’s an eclectic table for sure, a mixture of the various poker breeds, old and young, large and small, that includes a player in a ten gallon hat with an owl’s foot for luck, PokerStars qualifier Matthew Clark and of course Team PokerStars Pro Andre Akkari, who in contrast to ElkY wears a Brazil zip up with the poker player uniform of shades, hat and headphones.

You never can tell early on what mood some players are in, often these early hands are a sounding stage for future clashes as players get the lay of the land. But not here, everyone’s had a piece of something, although ElkY’s has been more a donation.

A raise form the seat seven player cost ElkY a few thousand after he’d re-raised; bidding his cards farewell when bet at on a 6-4-A flop. Then it was Matthew Clark’s turn, getting an early start and showing Kings in a pot he raised all the way. On their own they were no good, but with one a club to match the four on the board he was up several grand.

Then ElkY and the busy seat seven player again; a board of 9d8d2c6s, a big bet at ElkY (called) and an ace on the river bet at and called. The Ad7d was good. Something less for the Team PokerStars Pro who mucked for a second time as the victor thumped the table.

It’s early though and like he said, if it goes according to plan it’ll be either a short week or a long week - nothing in between.

Here are the hard numbers from Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier's table in the short-handed no limit hold 'em event in the Brasilia room this afternoon:

Table no: 11

Players: 6

Hoodies: 3 (With garish patterning: 2)

Sunglasses (pairs): 3

Baseball caps: 4

Chips: many

With the exception of the tallies for baseball caps and chips, the Team PokerStars Pro from France contributes "one" to each list. The hoodie is down at the moment, but the shimmering gold and diamond swirls are hard to miss, likewise the glint from the gold-rimmed shades.

In the chips category, however, ElkY can contribute significantly more. In fact, he can offer approximately 300,000, which is good for the chip lead as they plough deep into the money and, eventually, to a final table late tonight. No one is counting any chickens yet -- things change exceptionally rapidly in no limit hold 'em -- but for ElkY this side of the bubble looks remarkably like the other side, as described previously. ElkY is raising frequently and with impunity, daring anyone to tangle. Most refuse.

It's a bit of a trek to the Brasilia room from the Amazon Ballroom, where we are holed up on media row. But suffice to say, we'll continue to beat that path probably late into the night as the Frenchman continues to make a deep charge.

In the HORSE event, meanwhile, there have been movements. Unfortunately, if not entirely surprisingly, Dario Minieri has departed. He clung on, bobbed up and down for a while, before finally busting during a razz round. He'll need to wait to add another bracelet to his collection. But it will come. He has also just been joined on the rail by his Team PokerStars Pro team-mate Isabelle Mercier, who lost a three-way coup against Perry Friedman and Justin Bonomo.

At the other end of the ladder, the PokerStars player Joe "bigjoe2003" Michael is our tournament chip leader with about 740,000 in chips. Watch this space for more on Joe in the coming couple of hours, but for now we'll tell you that the Supernova Elite (the second ever, incidentally, after that man ElkY) is going exceptionally well here.

There are 50 players left at time of writing, and we're an hour into level 13. Still 34 places and about a day from the money, but this one is definitely hotting up.

Short-handed no-limit hold'em is defined, in part, on the high level of aggression required to play. Team PokerStars Pro Betrand "ElkY" is defined in much the same way.

As the bubble of the $5,000 NLHE six-handed event approached, ElkY looked like he was just waking up from a nap. He stretched, sighed, and grabbbed what appeared to be a random assortment of chips. They hit the table in front of him and arranged themselves in the form of a perfectly-sized raise. It was like watching a sleeping bear roll out of hibernation and into a campsite full of very appetizing campers. Opportunity smells good.

Play folded to the big blind, who smirked. "That's the first pot you've opened, so I'll give you some respect." The sarcasm wasn't lost on anybody.

At this moment, ElkY is the chip leader of the event on the bubble, and he's exploiting it in the most abusive way he can. Where his opponents might be happy to have a few orange $5,000 chips to sit with their couple of yellow $1,000-chip stacks, ElkY has a full stack of orange surrounded by a wall of yellow and countless smaller denominations.

Bubble abuse is a fine art and it is one of ElkY's specialties. While some players are hoping to turtle into 78th place for a $8,000 payout, ElkY is comfortably opening pots and picking up the kind of chips that could lead him to the final table, and if things go very well, the $911,000 first prize.

This bubble is a tough one to pop. Hand-for-hand play has been going on for the better part of an hour. The longer it lasts, the longer ElkY can sling chips with impunity. That's something that's fun for everybody to watch...unless you're sitting at his table right now.

The French press say that ElkY has been “running well”. That’s true in general, only not so at the World Series this year.

Since the Series in 2007, in which ElkY cashed three times and made a final table in the $2,500 No Limit Hold’em, the Team PokerStars Pro has gone on to a final table finish at the APPT Macau, has won the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, and made final tables at the Wynn Classic and the €10,000 Rendez Vous a Paris in May. But so far this Series... nothing.

“I played well in most of the events beside maybe one or two." he said. "Really I was tired and I try to go for the win every time I play - so I don’t cash very often but when I do I go far. So that’s my goal for today.”

Today there’s something of the gothic about him, draped as he is in a black top with swirling gold patterns on; a hood hides his face, sunglasses shade his eyes.

I’d stopped by to watch a few hands and he had 25k in front of him. But a short time later he'd lost ten grand in a mixed bag of hands, each accompanied by a laugh, a fold and a shake of the head. But still, he appeared to be trying all sorts to re-ignite his spark in this event, it was just a case of getting the cylinders to fire at once.

So why not try changing a few things? First he shuffled his chair closer to the table, adjusting his view. Then he shifted further down his chair which, after a round of hands, meant only his head and shoulders were visible above the table.

Down to 15k.

He also seemed willing to see which chips were best for riffling, trying greens first, then blues, then back to greens. Then this hand...

A mid-position raise of 875 from ElkY pre-flop, folded to the small blind who bumped it up to 2,700. Back to ElkY who moved all-in, neatly piling his chips colour coded on the felt before the small blind called with little fanfare. Had ElkY been able to script this part of the story I doubt he would have had this in mind. He showed his meagre 8-4, only to find himself up against A-K.

But fortune sometimes favours the crazy-brave and ElkY caught a four, his opponent missing completely. There had been method to this madness – the same player had been re-raising ElkY all day, prompting the Frenchman to make a stand. “I got lucky in that pot” he told me later.

Up to 30k.

So a little luck can give you the boost you need - never mind if it looked rough, and that was the change he needed. More profitable hands would follow, the start of an impressive upswing.

In another pot... “The big stack raised with jacks, I called with sixes in the big blind. I’d been check-raising a lot of flops so he didn’t believe me so much. I hit a six on the flop. I check raised hoping he had a pair and would push and he moved in with jacks. That was more than 30k.”

30K added to a stack now measuring over 70k, more so after another hand with A-J taken from table newbie and EPT San Remo winner Jason Mercier. Going deep is the plan and he just gave himself the ammunition to get there.