Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier was one of the top ranked StarCraft players in the world before beginning the transition to poker in the end of 2003. ElkY has been under the Team PokerStars Pro flag since 2006 and accumulated almost $11 million from playing live tournaments!
Although being a full-time poker player takes a lot of time, he's never cut the ties with strategy games. In fact, he has been playing a lot of Hearthstone lately... and it has paid off given that he's now a member of ‘Team Liquid' - a Netherlands-based eSports organisation that sponsors professional gamers.
Of his new appointment, ElkY said: "As it was a dream come true for me to join PokerStars Team Pro, today another of my dreams becomes reality as I become a Team Liquid player. When I discovered poker, I had to make the difficult choice to leave the competitive gaming world to focus my energy fully on poker. Hearthstone is one of the first games that shares the same skills as poker, and I am very excited for what the future holds in my multi-gaming career."
Lee Jones, Director of Poker Communications at PokerStars, said: "There are many similarities between poker and gaming, and ElkY's unrivalled success in both fields is a testament to his unwavering thirst for skill and strategy games. As the boundary between poker players and strategy gamers continues to blur, it is trailblazers such as ElkY who are narrowing the gap between people who consider themselves gamers, and those who consider themselves poker players. We look forward to the new era of strategy gaming that ElkY's appointment represents."
His first tournament with Team Liquid will be today in the SeatStory Cup IV Hearthstone tournament, a four-day tourney with $20,000 up for grabs! The tournament will be broadcasted live on Twitch.
