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In the world of professional gaming it pays to look a little edgy. The millions of fans who tune in to the Star League in South Korea like their World Cyber Games to put on a show, a space-aged one at that, and back in the day when man of the time Bertrand ‘ElkY Grospellier came second in the World Cyber Games, he delivered.

This is what came to mind when I saw him this morning. The Team PokerStars Pro has taken the days off between his last event and now to pamper up and today sports spiked peroxide blond hair and what I think are new sunglasses. Gone is the hoodie with the gold trim and the large sunglasses, in are a sleek jacket and open neck dress shirt and elegant shades. It’s back to space age for the Frenchman. He could easily be on the cover of a marvel comic.

ElkY keeps a neat stack, constantly adjusting it for elegance, symmetry and colour co-ordination. As any book will tell you to do he waits until the action reaches him before checking his cards and when he folds he gets back to his housekeeping. Occasionally he switches the playlist on his headphones.

These are crucial levels for everyone playing in the World Series but especially so in terms of ElkY’s game plan. I spoke to him earlier this week about his World Series this summer and asked if there was any reason for his lack of cashes. There was no concern, it all seemed acceptable.

“I either go out really fast or I go deep” he said, before promptly spinning up a short stack into a battle stack and turning it into a 16th place finish the next day. If he’s still here in 12 hours time we should have a firm indication of how much we’ll be seeing him this week.

It’s an eclectic table for sure, a mixture of the various poker breeds, old and young, large and small, that includes a player in a ten gallon hat with an owl’s foot for luck, PokerStars qualifier Matthew Clark and of course Team PokerStars Pro Andre Akkari, who in contrast to ElkY wears a Brazil zip up with the poker player uniform of shades, hat and headphones.

You never can tell early on what mood some players are in, often these early hands are a sounding stage for future clashes as players get the lay of the land. But not here, everyone’s had a piece of something, although ElkY’s has been more a donation.

A raise form the seat seven player cost ElkY a few thousand after he’d re-raised; bidding his cards farewell when bet at on a 6-4-A flop. Then it was Matthew Clark’s turn, getting an early start and showing Kings in a pot he raised all the way. On their own they were no good, but with one a club to match the four on the board he was up several grand.

Then ElkY and the busy seat seven player again; a board of 9d8d2c6s, a big bet at ElkY (called) and an ace on the river bet at and called. The Ad7d was good. Something less for the Team PokerStars Pro who mucked for a second time as the victor thumped the table.

It’s early though and like he said, if it goes according to plan it’ll be either a short week or a long week - nothing in between.

Here are the hard numbers from Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier's table in the short-handed no limit hold 'em event in the Brasilia room this afternoon:

Table no: 11

Players: 6

Hoodies: 3 (With garish patterning: 2)

Sunglasses (pairs): 3

Baseball caps: 4

Chips: many

With the exception of the tallies for baseball caps and chips, the Team PokerStars Pro from France contributes "one" to each list. The hoodie is down at the moment, but the shimmering gold and diamond swirls are hard to miss, likewise the glint from the gold-rimmed shades.

In the chips category, however, ElkY can contribute significantly more. In fact, he can offer approximately 300,000, which is good for the chip lead as they plough deep into the money and, eventually, to a final table late tonight. No one is counting any chickens yet -- things change exceptionally rapidly in no limit hold 'em -- but for ElkY this side of the bubble looks remarkably like the other side, as described previously. ElkY is raising frequently and with impunity, daring anyone to tangle. Most refuse.

It's a bit of a trek to the Brasilia room from the Amazon Ballroom, where we are holed up on media row. But suffice to say, we'll continue to beat that path probably late into the night as the Frenchman continues to make a deep charge.

In the HORSE event, meanwhile, there have been movements. Unfortunately, if not entirely surprisingly, Dario Minieri has departed. He clung on, bobbed up and down for a while, before finally busting during a razz round. He'll need to wait to add another bracelet to his collection. But it will come. He has also just been joined on the rail by his Team PokerStars Pro team-mate Isabelle Mercier, who lost a three-way coup against Perry Friedman and Justin Bonomo.

At the other end of the ladder, the PokerStars player Joe "bigjoe2003" Michael is our tournament chip leader with about 740,000 in chips. Watch this space for more on Joe in the coming couple of hours, but for now we'll tell you that the Supernova Elite (the second ever, incidentally, after that man ElkY) is going exceptionally well here.

There are 50 players left at time of writing, and we're an hour into level 13. Still 34 places and about a day from the money, but this one is definitely hotting up.

Short-handed no-limit hold'em is defined, in part, on the high level of aggression required to play. Team PokerStars Pro Betrand "ElkY" is defined in much the same way.

As the bubble of the $5,000 NLHE six-handed event approached, ElkY looked like he was just waking up from a nap. He stretched, sighed, and grabbbed what appeared to be a random assortment of chips. They hit the table in front of him and arranged themselves in the form of a perfectly-sized raise. It was like watching a sleeping bear roll out of hibernation and into a campsite full of very appetizing campers. Opportunity smells good.

Play folded to the big blind, who smirked. "That's the first pot you've opened, so I'll give you some respect." The sarcasm wasn't lost on anybody.

At this moment, ElkY is the chip leader of the event on the bubble, and he's exploiting it in the most abusive way he can. Where his opponents might be happy to have a few orange $5,000 chips to sit with their couple of yellow $1,000-chip stacks, ElkY has a full stack of orange surrounded by a wall of yellow and countless smaller denominations.

Bubble abuse is a fine art and it is one of ElkY's specialties. While some players are hoping to turtle into 78th place for a $8,000 payout, ElkY is comfortably opening pots and picking up the kind of chips that could lead him to the final table, and if things go very well, the $911,000 first prize.

This bubble is a tough one to pop. Hand-for-hand play has been going on for the better part of an hour. The longer it lasts, the longer ElkY can sling chips with impunity. That's something that's fun for everybody to watch...unless you're sitting at his table right now.

The French press say that ElkY has been “running well”. That’s true in general, only not so at the World Series this year.

Since the Series in 2007, in which ElkY cashed three times and made a final table in the $2,500 No Limit Hold’em, the Team PokerStars Pro has gone on to a final table finish at the APPT Macau, has won the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, and made final tables at the Wynn Classic and the €10,000 Rendez Vous a Paris in May. But so far this Series... nothing.

“I played well in most of the events beside maybe one or two." he said. "Really I was tired and I try to go for the win every time I play - so I don’t cash very often but when I do I go far. So that’s my goal for today.”

Today there’s something of the gothic about him, draped as he is in a black top with swirling gold patterns on; a hood hides his face, sunglasses shade his eyes.

I’d stopped by to watch a few hands and he had 25k in front of him. But a short time later he'd lost ten grand in a mixed bag of hands, each accompanied by a laugh, a fold and a shake of the head. But still, he appeared to be trying all sorts to re-ignite his spark in this event, it was just a case of getting the cylinders to fire at once.

So why not try changing a few things? First he shuffled his chair closer to the table, adjusting his view. Then he shifted further down his chair which, after a round of hands, meant only his head and shoulders were visible above the table.

Down to 15k.

He also seemed willing to see which chips were best for riffling, trying greens first, then blues, then back to greens. Then this hand...

A mid-position raise of 875 from ElkY pre-flop, folded to the small blind who bumped it up to 2,700. Back to ElkY who moved all-in, neatly piling his chips colour coded on the felt before the small blind called with little fanfare. Had ElkY been able to script this part of the story I doubt he would have had this in mind. He showed his meagre 8-4, only to find himself up against A-K.

But fortune sometimes favours the crazy-brave and ElkY caught a four, his opponent missing completely. There had been method to this madness – the same player had been re-raising ElkY all day, prompting the Frenchman to make a stand. “I got lucky in that pot” he told me later.

Up to 30k.

So a little luck can give you the boost you need - never mind if it looked rough, and that was the change he needed. More profitable hands would follow, the start of an impressive upswing.

In another pot... “The big stack raised with jacks, I called with sixes in the big blind. I’d been check-raising a lot of flops so he didn’t believe me so much. I hit a six on the flop. I check raised hoping he had a pair and would push and he moved in with jacks. That was more than 30k.”

30K added to a stack now measuring over 70k, more so after another hand with A-J taken from table newbie and EPT San Remo winner Jason Mercier. Going deep is the plan and he just gave himself the ammunition to get there.

After our initial interview in a back hallway at Atlantis, we gave 2008 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure winner Betrand "ElkY" Grospellier some time to breathe. Now, we've asked him to write a little bit about what his first major win meant to him and his poker career.

by Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier

The PCA is always a special tournament for poker players, especially because the location is so great and because there are so many online qualifiers and the atmosphere is very special. Players are usually much younger, too, and I know many more of them as we always play with each other on PokerStars.

The tournament was pretty much a very smooth ride for me, except the end of day 3 where I lost a huge pot with AQ to JT to put me in the bottom of the crowd. Fortunately, I managed to double up twice in a row on my big blind and small blind, the second time eliminating my fellow member of Team PokerStars Pro, Hevad Khan. I feel great about the way I played overall. With the exception of the AQ hand, everything really went my way this tournament.

I was able reach the final table second in chips, and was surrounded by the two players I respected the most. Joe Elpayaa and David Pham were on my immediate left and right, and respectively third and first in chips. I knew we were going to be the three most fearless players at the table. I was was fortunate to have great timing and capture the chip lead early on by eliminating two other players.

Then I caught a big hand in a blind vs. blind battle against David Pham which really slowed him down against me. Joe got in some bad situations, too, and found himself short stacked pretty early. I was able to defeat his KJh with my AQo. I was more focused than ever before on this final table.

Pham was the next one out, after losing a bunch of small pots. His elimination was a huge relief for me Finally, I ended up heads up with the chip lead. I was being very aggressive from the very start and won a couple of nice pots against Hafiz Khan. I could feel he was ready to make a move on me. When I made my standard raise of 400,000 on the button and he shoved, I asked him how much it was. He was almost stuttering after realizing his mistake.

I insta-called and was relieved when he sheepishly turned over 93o. The board came 7524. When I saw the four of hearts rolling on the river, I was overwhelmed with joy and satisfaction. All my friends rushed towards me to congratulate me.

It will be engraved in my memory for ages to come.