Bertrand Grospellier, better known to gamers as ElkY, has in the last couple of years become quite the professional tournament poker player. As a result he often carries around large sums of money on his person, to buy into cash games or tournaments. Upon flying to Barcelona to play in an EPT (European Poker Tour) tournament there ElkY was stopped by customs police who saw the money and refused to believe it was as a result of playing poker. Instead they suspected he was a drug dealer and sent the money off to Madrid, the capital, where he must prove the origin of it to see it returned. This despite ElkY showing them articles about himself and pictures as a poker player.

Perhaps playing into the police's suspicions ElkY's style of dress has always been eccentric. For the WCG in 2001 the Frenchman turned up at the finals with dyed orange hair and wore dark sunglasses all the time. Nevertheless he was one of the top western players to find success in Korea. At the WCG ElkY won a silver medal in 2001, losing to the legendary 'Emperor of Terran' SlayerS_`BoxeR`, and placed 4th at the 2002 event. He also finished 4th in SKY 2 Ongamenet Starleague.

As a tournament poker player ElkY is ranked 33rd on the all-time money list with $5,843,433. The majority of those winnings came from 4 big event scores. In January of 2007 ElkY placed 2nd at the EPT Scandinavian Open for $399,953, getting his name out there as a tournament player. A year later in January of 2008 he won the EPT PokerStars Caribbean Adventure for $2,000,000 and in October of the same year won the WPT's $15,000 entry Championship at the Bellagio casino in Las Vegas for $1,411,015. In 2009 ElkY placed 3rd at the WPT's $25,000 Championship for $776,245, playing at the final table with legendary WSOP 1998 champion Scotty "The prince of poker" Nguyen.

ElkY is only the third player to win both a WPT and an EPT title, and was named 'WPT Player of the year' for his play in the seventh season.

Source: Aftonbladet (in Swedish) via rakaka