ElkY wins first Hearthstone tournament
Bertrand Grospellier takes his first big step in his new eSports career, for a fraction of what he would win in poker.
Last year, Triple Crown winner ElkY joined Team Liquid as a Hearthstone pro, making him the first player sponsored by both a poker site (PokerStars) and an eSports Team.
Now he has taken one step further in his Hearthstone career by winning his first tournament. He won the Redemption Cup at the Insomnia Truesilver Championship 2 last week.
His prize was £1,000, which was very modest contrasted with his almost $11 million in live poker winnings and $1.7 million in online MTT winnings, which includes WCOOP, WSOP, EPT and WPT titles. His biggest single poker prize to date being $2 million for winning the PCA Main Event.
In fact it's such a small prize relatively, you might even suspect he is purposely covering up the prize amount on the cheque in his winner's image:
VictoryðŸ†! 🎉🎊 Won my first @PlayHearthstone tournament, the #RedemptionCup at the @MultiplayEsport GGs @GreenSheepHS pic.twitter.com/U6rAlZNlYq
— ElkY (@elkypoker) 27 March 2016
No stranger to eSports
Bertrand is no stranger to gaming, as before poker he was one of the best StarCraft players in the world, which included several close finishes in the World Cyber Games and a win in the 2003 Euro Cyber Games.
However, since then he turned his attention to poker and became one of the most successful players ever. He has the Triple Crown, numerous High Roller wins, two WCOOP and one SCOOP title, was the first player to get to SuperNova and SuperNova Elite on PokerStars and also has the world record for most SNGs played in an hour.
Now it looks like he has taken the first big step in trying to emulate his success in a new game. You can watch the footage of his first Hearthstone win below:
