I have only missed the very first EPT Grand Final to play, yet the only result I had was a runner-up finish in last year heads up event. I love playing high-roller events because the smaller fields usually mean we have much more experience with each other, and mind games as well as meta-game are a much bigger part of the game as usual.

My first table draw was just what was needed for some fireworks: Viktor Blom sitting on my left, not to mention Kevin Stani, Leo Fernandez, and Ville Walbeck. I quickly got up to a big stack just to lose it on some pretty sick hand vs Viktor and finally end the day with barely less than I started with. Day 2 was such a roller coaster, too. After hitting my first royal flush ever all-in with [As][Qs] versus pair of eights, a rush of cards saw me take over the chip lead, only to lose few to a flip and get kinda owned by Galen Hall on my immediate left.

When I was short-stacked with 12 players left, I had a really bad deja-vu feeling. Two years ago in Monte Carlo, I finished eleventh with eight paying. Last year, I finished 14th when they paid eleven.

This year, I never gave up, and few lucky breaks later, I made the final table (alas, as pretty short stack). It was a very tough one, and I had now a chance to make history as being the first player ever to win two EPT High Roller events. So did my friend and fellow Team PokerStars Pro Vanessa Rousso.

It was definitely a weird one, as my friend Benny Spindler took care of most of the opposition while I was able to find key double-ups in the right spots. Then Juha Helppi was all in for the first time of the day, and I picked up queens in the big blind just after Benny busted Doc Sands in fourth We were heads up!

After some hands without much action, i managed to double up with jacks vs KT on a T749 board in a re-raised pot, where I made a big check-raise all-in on the turn. From there i just had the feeling it was all over, and cards were definitely going my way. I was able to keep the pressure and the lead until a bit cooler of a final hand saw my full house overtake his trip nines.

Even though it has been almost three weeks now, I still cherish this victory, because my last live victory this big was the PCA 2009 High Roller Event, and in those 2 years I gave my best and realized even more so than the beautiful game of poker we all love is invariably full of disappointments and swings. Variance being king, we just have to accept it, as it makes the rare victories priceless!

Follow Elky on Twitter

Since I joined Team PokerStars Pro in June 2006, I've been to many places and everywhere was a great adventure. However, if you ask me my favorite place to play poker in the world, I'd still say PokerStars. Why? Because it gives me the freedom to play from wherever I want, in the most comfortable settings, with definitely the best software, and a structure that's very unique for online tournaments.

And also we find all our favorite tournaments back every year. There are always new ones, and that also makes for a lot of fun.

In WCOOP 2009 I was able to win two bracelets in three days and those memories
will remain with me for ever. Those are the moments why all of us play the beautiful game of poker, and i wish you all to experience it at least once in your life. The adrenaline rush you get for being deep in a tournament is a very special feeling, and it really helped me to stay focused to be able to win those two titles (I believe they lasted 16 and 18 hours).

However, no matter how excited you can be, sheer willpower can only help you that much, so you should plan your schedule accordingly and get really prepared because playing your best game for 18 hours isn't the easiest thing to do! Sleeping well, eating well and having a light workout before the start is the best way i found to do prepare.

But enough talk about the past, now WCOOP 2010 is coming very soon and my excitement about it is quite unreal. It's my favorite time of the year for sure. The schedule looks wonderful and there will be tons and tons of opportunity for everyone to test their poker skills with all the top players in the world without having to leave the house.

So get ready and join me for the PokerStars WCOOP 2010 and your own shot at making poker history!

He was gracious enough to send us some of his thoughts following his recent win in the 2009 WCOOP Event #38.

by Betrand "ElkY" Grospellier

The WCOOP events have always been my favorite online tournaments, and it keeps getting better and better every year.

My favorite part is definitely the great structures, but the guarantees are also amazing and so many satellites run on PokerStars that anyone gets a chance to participate. That is a great thing.

Last year I had an amazing WCOOP series, but ultimately I can never be really satisfied without a title. That's what I live for. I would easily trade 20 final tables for one single win. because the feeling is just incomparable. When you make the final table and you played well all tournament, you can't regret anything and it's nice, but winning it all is just so different.

You can just imagine how thrilled I was to finally win that WCOOP bracelet after five years of playing in the series. It was such a tough tournament, too; I was only a few cards away from elimination a couple of times and the final three tables were filled with all the greatest online players.

When we got to the final table, even though I'd been playing for 13 hours, I could feel it was finally my time in the WCOOP. The adrenaline was pumping so much that I didn't even feel tired. After I won I was exhausted, but at the same time so excited that I still couldn't sleep for the next six hours!

It also meant a lot to me because these days I don't have the chance to play online quite as much due to my very busy live tournament schedule. I'm very proud I was able to accomplish that feat of defeating 1100+ players once again in a tournament, and to come back where it all began for me--multi0tabling on PokerStars.

Now I gotta be ready and prepare because WCOOP is far from over, the WCOOP main event is my favorite online tournament of the year and I'm so ready to play my best once again. I hope to see all of you there,

Good Luck !

ElkY is a member of Team PokerStars and has won just about everything you could ever imagine.

Strategy for Step SNGs on PokerStars

by ElkY

Steps have become a very popular way to qualify for events of PokerStars. In this article, I will give you a few strategy pointers to manage your play in Steps tournamets.

For the sake of this article, we will assume that you are playing a Step 2 with the following structure:

Even though they are Sit and Go tournaments, Steps are very similar to satellites. The bubble factor becomes a crucial concept to play steps optimally, and you should always keep it in mind. Indeed, if you don't reach at least fourth place, you will lose all the work you've done to reach the current step. Obviously, you should really try to avoid such situations.

For the above reason, I suggest that you play a very tight style until you reach six-handed play. Until then, you should try to avoid big confrontations that could potentially hurt your stack a lot, including big coin flips. My suggestion is to pick on small stacks as much as possible. Always use position to keep the initiative so that you can force your opponents to make difficult decisions.

Again, you need to always keep in mind the importance of the bubble factor. For example, when you cover your opponent in a hand and you're holding a medium pair in position, don't hesitate to put you opponent all-in pre-flop. You will often force him to lay down big hands like ace-king. Like is always the case in SNGs, one of the best strategies is to abuse the short stacks whenever the spot is right and until you reach the next pay jump.

To sum up, play tight until you reach six-handed play, and use your position to abuse short stacks by capitalizing on the bubble factor. Furthermore, your greatest weapon will be your ability to constantly adapt to the situation, therefore allowing you to pick your spots in an optimal manner. You will need to be able to distinguish those opponents who are aware of the bubble factor from the others in order to implement your strategy efficiently.

Good luck at the Step tables!

It's not like top professionals to go around seeding the tournament fields with sage advice, but we've managed to get the man we know as ElkY to give us a little advice before the start of play.

ElkY believes that the concept of bet-sizing actually differs between live and online play and he's outlined his ideas below.

Thanks to ElkY for sharing a little bit of what makes him great.

Bet sizing for fun and profit

by Bertand "ElkY" Grospellier

On PokerStars, tournaments structures are getting better and better, and being deep stacked in many tournaments, we have to adapt our game to the structure.

Bet sizing becomes more important and it's crucial to know exactly the amount to bet. I believe that live and online tournaments aren't much different in that aspect, and the crucial part, of course, is to adapt to the table.

The first key in bet sizing is the size of your stack and that of your opponent(s) in the hand. Early in the tournament, it's hard to stack off to someone but if the situation is right, you should still try to maximize your chances to do so, and by then have a plan for how the hand will play out. On the other hand, when you have medium strength hand, you don't want to commit too big a portion of your chips in the pot. You may have a dilemma there. It would be the correct play to just go with the often heard: "Big hand, big pot", but from a metagame point of view, that's not very wise. I believe in online tournaments, especially the Sunday majors, the field is so big and tables change so often that people won't be able to realize what you are doing most of the time. It's still best to vary your game, like making a big bluff for pot size bet on the river once in a while if you judge the situation right.

The key thing in poker, especially as the games are all getting tougher, is to be aware of your image and the table dynamic it creates. Everyone knows how to evaluate your hand range based on your image, but adapting the bet sizing can be tougher. It depends quite a lot on your history at the table, if you have one. If you bet small on the river with the nuts in position, it might not be the most +EV bet at the time, but if you are playing with observant players, they will notice it, which will allow you to bluff cheaper on the river when the blinds and pots get bigger. They'll likely remember you are able to do that for value. On the other hand, if people see you as a maniac capable of bluffing all-in at anytime, then overbetting all-in with very strong hands is a very deceptive way to play. One very popular move these days is to come over the top all in pre-flop for a huge amount with big pairs, as a lot of opponents will be likely to put you on AK/AQ type of hands and call with a dominated pair.

Structure is also an important element into consider. The slower the structure is, the better it is for you, given you have an edge on other players. For this reason, you shouldn't want to take too many risks when you'll have plenty of play available. But the pre-flop play changes a lot. Early in tournament, as the blinds are very small compared to stack sizes, it's important to protect your big hand by raising a lot pre-flop. If everyone has 150+ bbs, hands like Kings or Aces can bring trouble, especially if the table is very passive and full of calling stations. So, you want to reduce the number of opponents. For example if the blinds are 25/50 with 10,000 starting stacks like in the Sunday Million, and there are five limpers ahead of you, I think making it 400 is the minimum. When the tournament reaches mid-stage, it's important to notice the size of the stacks of the people you are playing the hand with in order to establish a good strategy. On a re-steal attempt, for example, you want to give yourself maximum fold equity but not commit yourself into the hand. You want to pick the right opponent's stack to make this move. Deep into a tourney, the bet sizing pre-flop will usually be smaller. As everyone gets short-stacked, it becomes less important to protect your hand and more important to protect your stack. That's especially true if you have an aggressive pre-flop opening range.

Varying the bet sizing in function of your hand can be a dangerous concept, as it will be easier for some opponents to adapt to your betting patterns. Especially pre-flop, I like to always open for the same amount at every level, usually 3.5x to 4x early on down to 2.3-2.7xbb very deep in. After the flop however, there are many more considerations to make. A lot of those concepts are much more familiar to cash game players, but basically you want to bet the amount that will put your opponent to a tough decision every time. This is of course much easier to achieve as a big stack, as you can put maximum pressure on your opponent. The texture of the flop of course and number of opponents in the hand is a key concept to how much you should bet. If you have [Qs] [Qc] on a [Qh] [Ts] [9h] board out of position against 3 players, you will have to bet a different amount than if you have [Ks] [Kd] on a [Kc] [7d] [2h] board. The best course of action is to calculate on the flop -- depending how deep you are -- how to stack your opponent when you think your hand is best.

Position matters also, as it allows you to manipulate your opponent much more easily. You can get full value out of your big hands and lose the minimum when you get outdrawn. As it is tougher to play hands out of position, you usually want to re-raise more pre-flop if you are out of position, and even more so against good players. When I'm in position against my most likely opponents, however, I don't want to discourage the action, especially if we both have sufficient stacks for post-flop play to matter. I believe people make more mistakes post-flop in poker, and when I have a legitimate hand, I don't mind playing against the blinds.

Antes make no-limit tournaments much more interesting, as people need to play more hands. It makes the pre-flop aggression so much more worthwhile, but I don't advocate raising more when ante kicks in, as it will commit a bigger portion of your stack and not necessarily reduce the chances of getting called enough. It does affect the steal-resteal game a lot, and opening and/or re-raising a wider range is largely rewarded when antes kicks in.

Finally, I think changing up bet sizing a lot is very important. It also requires a lot of skill and has to be used wisely, as it can also make your game more predictable. Analyzing all the aspects of the hand you are in should be done every time. You need to plan the hand ahead on every street, and then betting the amount that will make your opponent react in the most favorable way.

I'll give you one example of a hand I played in the WCOOP Main Event. I had 58,000 in the big blind with [Ad] [Qc]. A very aggressive player, holla@yoboy ID on PokerStars, opened for a standard raise of 2,100 at 400/800 blinds from mid-position and got a call from another good player on the button. I had many options on how to play the hand, because the opening player had 42,000 in chips, I figured if I three-bet to something like 6,500 or 7,000, he would be in a position where he could easily lay down his weaker hands, but also might read my re-raise for a squeeze move and shove over the top with most of his pocket pairs. That would be a disastrous situation for me.

Putting that much money in preflop with [Ad] [Qc] at this stage of the tournament isn't really something I want to do, but re-raising and folding to a push would make my image much weaker. People wouldn't give me credit in the future which is something I need. I therefore chose to call and play the flop.

It came [As] [Th] [5h]. With 7,000 in the pot and knowing my opponent's tendencies, I thought a checkraise would make him lay down most of his hands. I was pretty confident that I was way ahead of his range, as the only hands that could beat me are A-K, A-T, A-5, T-T or 5-5. It's a very small combination compared to all the combo draws that are out there, including any ace suited in hearts, [Qh] [Jh]. It would also let me see the button's reaction before committing more money. So, if the button raised, I could still get away cheaply.

My opponent bet 4,000, a very standard continuation bet size. I decided to make it 12,000 because of the drawy texture of the board. It would also leave him exactly 28,000 more, the perfect size bet for him to make a move on me with a semi-bluff. I believe if he is in position with a monster like a set or A-T, calling would be his favorite play.

He instantly shoved all-in and I snap called. He showed me K-J for a gutshot straight draw, three outs because I had one of the queens. My hand held up and I raked a big pot that made me chip leader at my table for the time being. If I had raised more on the flop, I would have left him with no fold equity and he would have mucked his hand right there. It would've ended up costing me 35,000 chips more. If I had raised less, I believe he might have called getting very good odds, or maybe re-raised me. Then it would have been very difficult for me to put the fourth raise in with my hand.

Good luck in SCOOP!

by Betrand "ElkY" Grospellier

I decided to arrive in Vegas about two weeks before the start of this event so I could really be in perfect shape and condition to play it. Considering it was a six-day event, the amazing structure would make way for a lot of poker to be played. I wanted to be ready to exploit any weakness from my opponents.

My plan worked well and i managed to hang around the top of the field for the first 4 days, before taking the chip lead in Day 5 and going to the final table as a huge chip leader.

During this week I played a hand that im very proud of, probably the best hand i ever played in my life. The action had folded to Joe Ebanks. He raised to 26,000 from the button. Oddie Dardon and I called from the blinds. The flop came out J-7-5. Dardon and I checked to Ebanks, who bet 44,000. Dardon folded, but I called. A queen came on the turn and I checked again. This time, Ebanks bet 90,000.

This time, I raised to 225,000 and Dardon called. The river was a deuce. I checked and Ebanks moved all-in for 300,000. I thought for just a moment before calling with my 7-6, good against K-T. That hand moved me into the chip lead.

All in all, I'm very satisified with the way the tournament went, because I was never all-in. Also I took very few coin flips, and when I took them i had a dominating chip lead against my opponents.

This victory means so much to me. I defeated 1136 players inthe Carribean for the EPT PCA earlier in the year. They were mostly players coming from the internet world, like me. This time the field was probably the toughest I had to play. Proportionally, there were many tough seasoned live players, and being able to come on top of it once again is really an achievement I'm proud of.

It was twice as important also for me to conclude this event by a victory because during all the WCOOP I felt I played great and went very deep but every time i was down to 2 or 3 tables in a 1000 or 2000+ entrants tournament, Lady Luck was playing tricks with me and I finished a bit disappointed everytime. Coming with the chip lead at the WPT when 12 players were left, i did everything I could so that wouldnt happen.

And of course, Las Vegas really is all you hear about for poker players. Winning a tournament here was definitely one of my goals, and now that its done, I'm in a good spot for the Player of the Year race.

I feel my tournament game has never been so tuned, and my confidence level never so high, so I'm ready to finish the year as well as I started it!

See you all on PokerStars or on the tournament circuit very soon.

by ElkY

Since I began playing poker online, WCOOP has become the most awaited series of the year, because it merges the great structure and big prize pool from the live tournaments, and the fast-paced action typical of the online world.

For someone like me, it's always disappointing not to win. Looking back at it, with the exception of the Triple Shootout final table where I didn't play my best due to staying awake longer than 40 hours, I don't regret any of the plays I made, especially not deep in the events.

The more I played poker lately, and the more heads-up is becoming my favorite game. It's a combination of really fast action, the fact that you can play all those hands that are trash in ring games, and that you get yourself and your opponents in marginal situations all the time. More importantly, one of my favorite aspect of the game, adaptability, is even more important in heads-up.

So when I heard about that new WCOOP event, the 25k$ heads-up, I was eager to compete. The structure was really wonderful and it brings so much depth to the game itself.

I had the toughest game of my tournament against IluvAntonius, a really strong player, but good cards at the key times brought me my 2nd win of the event. I actually felt he was outplaying me and had the edge early on, but winning key flips put me back on track and let me win the game.

Most of the games I played I started at a chip disadvantage early on, but the structure really let room for lots of play, and it allowed me to come back many times. I was fortunate enough to have a big rush of cards against Gavin Griffin in semi-finals, and while playing them very aggressively, it helped me secure a win.

As for the final heads up, after a slow start, my opponent really went on a big rush of cards and I believed I was able to lose very little against those, and even to get the chip lead back, but I believe I made a crucial
mistake when I made a call way too loose against his full house, that gave him the lead back, and I never really got the cards to get up from it.

Congratulations to all this years winners, as it takes not only skill but a lot of dedication and stamina to beat the toughest and biggest online fields ever.

I'm thrilled that the WCOOP this year was such a tremendous success, and I'm now definitely looking forward to the next edition to do even better. I have one year to improve, and even if the offline circuit keeps me busy, I'll try my best to keep playing the big PokerStars tournaments, because that's really where you learn the most.

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.