In early 2020, Bertrand Grospellier – maybe known by most under his alias “ElkY” – joined GGPoker as an ambassador of the site. ElkY began his journey with GGPoker, his Twitch channel continued to grow, and his ambition was to focus on interacting with his viewers while playing on the GGPoker online client. Now, roughly five years later, the collaboration between the two has ended.
ElkY’s Journey with GGPoker
When the former esports player joined the GGPoker team in 2020, he was already one of the biggest names on the poker scene. Before starting his collaboration with what today is the biggest online poker site, ElkY already had around $14,600,000 in live earnings, with his biggest live cash at the time being a second-place finish in the $111,111 WSOP High Roller for One Drop. Losing heads-up to Doug Polk, ElkY earned himself $2,278,657; this is, in fact, still his biggest live poker tournament paycheck.
Becoming a part of the GGPoker family, ElkY joined big names such as Daniel Negreanu, Antonio Esfandiari, Felipe Ramos, and Bryn Kenney. GGPoker already back then was one of the biggest online poker sites, and ElkY praised them for their poker client. In a video on the GGPoker YouTube channel, the Frenchman claimed the client’s software was in a class of its own with the ability to track one’s history with opponents and buy/sell other players’ action directly through the client.
Before his journey with GGPoker, ElkY had been a PartyPoker ambassador for two years. His biggest ambassadorship, though, was with PokerStars, where he was a team member for almost 12 years.
ElkY quickly became a vital part of the GGPoker team and already being a very famous and well-respected poker player, he received his own lines of emojis on GGPoker. With ElkY joining an already strong team of ambassadors, GGPoker continued their endeavor to become the number one online poker site; just two months prior to announcing the addition of ElkY, World Series of Poker (WSOP) had announced their initial collaboration with GGPoker and the debut of the WSOP Super Circuit Online Series. In 2021, GGPoker surpassed PokerStars and became the biggest site, and their growth didn’t stop there; presumably, few people have missed that GGPoker bought the WSOP brand at the end of 2024. It’s safe to say that ElkY was a part of GGPoker’s arguably biggest journey.
What will ElkY do now?
On February 18, ElkY announced the conclusion of his partnership with GGPoker on X. We don’t know exactly what’s next for ElkY in life, but he ended his tweet stating that he’ll “still be playing on GG and WSOP from time to time.” Perhaps he’ll be present at the biggest stage of them all; the schedule for the 2025 WSOP was released the other day, and it’s evident the event strives to be bigger than ever before, featuring more live gold bracelet events than ever before.
