blonde poker

 
With 1,136 poker fanatics prising themselves away from their daily lives and making that reluctant trip to the sunny shores of Bahamas, the 2008 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure officially became the world’s largest high stakes poker event outside of the World Series.

Whilst a large contingent of the field were young American online players, many of whom were eager to take advantage of the change in age restrictions, there were plenty of familiar faces who stumped up the $8,000 buy-in fee. As well as the twenty out of twenty three PokerStars pros, the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island reeled in the likes of David Williams, Josh Arieh and Annette Obrestad, not to mention a handful of English players including John Shipley, Dave Colclough and recent Baden EPT winner Julian Thew.

After five hard fought days, the final table comprised of the following motley crew:

David Pham -- 7,390,000
Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier -- 3,060,000
Joseph Elpayaa -- 2,755,000
Hafiz Khan  -- 2,560,000
Kris Kuykendall -- 2,150,000
Richard Fohrenbach -- 1,855,000
Craig Hopkins -- 1,770,000
Christian Harder -- 905,000

First to hit the deck was the charismatic Richard Fohrenbach. Although doubling up with Jacks versus Tens, Richard found the Knaves once more and decided to call ElkY’s all-in re-raise with Big Slick. However, a King on the Flop sealed Richard’s fate and he was a gonna in 8th.

Following the American to the rail was fellow countryman Christian Harder; he’d been short for most of the final table, and after a couple of uncontested all-ins, also felt the wrath of ElkY, his Sevens no match for the Frenchman’s Pocket Jacks, especially when a third hit the Flop.

In 6th was Joseph Elpayaa. The 19-year old Chicagoan, who goes under the moniker ‘bigegypt’, supplied ElkY with his hattrick of eliminations, his K-J failing to improve against ElkY’s A-Q and forcing him to settle for $300,000 and a standing ovation from the hordes of fans that he’d brought to the stands.

With five remaining, Chesterfield's Craig ‘The Apple’ Hopkins was the shortstack and after finding K-8, opted to push all-in to stay alive. Unfortunately, David Pham found Pocket Tens and swiftly called, a 9-T-7 Flop offering the last remaining Brit an open ended straight draw, but one that failed to emerge. Afterwards, The Apple confessed to a lack of hands on the final day, but admitted that he was delighted to be taking home $450,000 for his troubles.

With four left, the chip counts were as follows:

Kris Kuykendall -- 2,665,000
David Pham -- 5,045,000
Elky -- 9,550,000
Hafiz Khan -- 5,720,000

Although ElkY had taken control of proceedings away from David Pham, the Vietnamese pro had a great shot at hooking ElkY back into the pack when he check-raised all-in with Qc-5s on a 5d-Kh-Qh-Jd board. But ElkY called with Ad-2d and hit the 7d to flush Pham out of the comp.

Third place and a mouth-watering $800,000 went to the intriguingly named Kris Kuykendall. A pro of six months, Kris was playing in his first live tournament to date, but after performing incredibly to reach the final three, he was quickly disposed of by Hafiz Khan when the latter’s A-7 held up against Kris’ K-Q to leave us with an America/France heads up confrontation.

When the two players returned from the break, it was reported that a deal had been made with ElkY taking $1.45 million and Hafiz $1.35 million with $300,000 and the trophy left to play for.

This may have affected the final bout, as within several hands, Hafiz had re-raised all-in with the speculative holding of 9-3o and been duly called by ElkY’s pair of snowmen. A non-9 hitting board later and it was all over, the former pro gamer who once resided in South Korea going one step further than his Copenhagen display by becoming the 2008 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure and taking home $1,750,000 in spondoolies.

During the press conference, ElkY highlighted the importance of sitting to the right of Pham and being able to control his aggression, whilst also identifying the Elpayaa exit as the turning point. “I stopped worrying about David at that point and was confident of winning the title, which was the main objective.”

Parting ways, he finished by saying that he would spend the money on partying and would buy everyone a drink at the club. Joy! I always liked that guy.