Before there was ElkY the poker star, there was ElkY the video game rock star. Now, they are one in the same.
Today, Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier became the newest member of Team Liquid, the eSports professional gaming sponsor. This is the first time PokerStars has had one of its Team Pros signed to top gaming sponsorship.
While ElkY continues his role as one of poker’s best ambassadors and Team PokerStars Pros, he will play Hearthstone for Team Liquid.
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This marks ElkY’s returns to his root. Prior to his poker stardom, ElkY was among the most successful StarCraft players in history. In 2001, he finished second in the World Cyber Games in 2001 for StarCraft and in the Ongamenet WarCraft Retail League in 2002. A year later, won the Euro Cyber Games. It wasn’t long after that when he was discovered by PokerStars. Since then, he’s won more than $10 million, a coveted Triple Crown (EPT, WPT, and WSOP titles), and earned a Guinness World Record for the most Single Table Sit & Go’s played online in one hour.
ElkY said, “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 unrivaled 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.”
ElkY’s first official tournament with Team Liquid will be today in the SeatStory Cup IV Hearthstone tournament. The four-day tournament, which began yesterday and concludes on Sunday, November 15, will see 32 of the world’s best Hearthstone players battle it out for a total prize pool of $20,000. The tournament will be broadcast live on Twitch: twitch.tv/taketv_hs.
As ElkY would say, “So sick!”
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Brad Willis is the PokerStars Head of Blogging.
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