Yesterday saw 8 top poker players, and one poker playing celebrity, take to the felt to determine the final entrant in the 2010 World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions. Mike Mizrachi, Tom Dwan, Andy Bloch, Bertrand Grospellier, Gus Hansen, Sorel Mizzi, Liv Boeree, Paul Wasicka and Don Cheadle were all invited to take part in the single table freezeout tournament, with the winner gaining entry into the million dollar free-roll tournament.

Mike “The Grinder” Mizrachi came in riding his hot streak, and found himself heads-up, with a 2-to-1 chip lead over Bertrand “ElkY” Grosspieler. ElkY quickly pulled even with The Grinder, and in the end was able to defeat the only man at the table who had won a WSOP bracelet –The original criteria for inclusion in the TOC through online voting for any player who has ever won a WSOP bracelet: However Mizrachi won his bracelet in 2010 and was thus ineligible for the online voting.

ElkY, one of the most dangerous, and unpredictable, poker players in the world is an online poker legend and one of the first online poker players to develop a cult-like following. His presence will make for an interesting contrast between the other players in the TOC like Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negreanu, Mike Matusow, Annie Duke, and so on. So far in these battles between the new generation of online poker players vs. the old guard it has been the old guard who has gotten the upper hand more times than not.

Tags: 2010 World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions, Bertrand Grosspieler, Bertrand “ElkY” Grosspieler, ElkY, TOC, World Series of Poker TOC, WSOP TOC, WSOP Tournament of Champions

This entry was posted on Friday, June 11th, 2010 at 10:26 am and is filed under Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.