The Two Young Guns of Tournament Poker
I posed the question on an Internet Forum recently “Who would be your two best tournament Poker players of 2008 and 2009”. Amazingly in a game where variance and luck play a large part of the game there was an almost unanimous response to this thread. The two players mentioned repeatedly by posters were Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier and Jason Mercier. I know these players and wanted to pose the question in case I had missed somebody before I wrote this article. But I had not. These two players have set a very high standard for poker over the last 18 months as you will see. No-one is asking whether they are lucky anymore, they know they are the real deal and look set to dominate the live poker scene for years to come.
Elky has become a cult figure in the poker world. He started life as a video gaming specialist moving at a young age to South Korea to become a gaming professional. He turned to poker and started his career slowly, almost going broke. But he persevered and on October 20th 2008 he won the WPT $25,000 championship for $1.4 million dollars and has not looked back since. On the 7th January 2009 another monster cash followed with a win in the $24,500 high rollers event for $423,000. Sixteen days later he won yet another $100,000 by finishing third in another high roller event. On the 18th April Elky struck again securing a 3rd place finish at the $25,000 Seventh Annual Five Star World Poker Classic, Las Vegas winning $700,000. It was like this young man could not miss in high buy-in events. He ended this huge run in the main event of the World Series finishing 40th for $40,000. He was tipped to go much further after acquiring a massive chip lead throughout the tournament. He has managed to achieve one excellent cash after another and has won over $2.5 million in the last year alone.
Jason Mercier has enjoyed similar success to Elky in poker tournaments. Whilst Elky has dominated the WPT and EPT scene, Mercier is admired for his achievements in the USA. He won the Sanremo EPT event for just over $1 million in 2008. He followed that up with a quick succession of big scores after cashing three times at the 2008 World Series of Poker. On September 10th 2008 he won the EPT Barcelona for a $300,000 win, and then won $48,000 only a few days later in the WSOPE Pot Limit Omaha event. He then won the £20,000 high roller event on 5th October for a massive win of $944,000. Major success followed in 2009 with his first WSOP bracelet and multiple cashes followed by 4th place in the WSOPE main event. He cashed $440,000 for that 4th place and then played in the £2,500 No limit Holdem event winning that for $184,000 last week. Quite an amazing run of results by both players.
This should show the aspiring player that if you are good enough and understand how to ride the luck at the right moments then you can make a massive amount of money playing poker. Elky and Mercier have done; it is possible. You still need to put in the work and dedication to get there and these guys definitely are not afraid to put up the big buy-ins but their willingness to take a risk and back their skills have paid big dividends for them. When you play poker and take a bad beat, remember that winning is possible and that the most skilled players do have a real and tangible edge in tournaments. Follow the progress of these two great players as they can both teach you plenty about how to play the style of poker the modern tournament game requires in order for you to be successful.
By Malcolm Clarke
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Tags: bertrand grospellier, elky, jason mercier, poker strategy, professional poker, tournament poker