Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier is the EPT Grand Final High Roller Champion after besting the 58-strong field in the €25,000 event to get his hands on the massive €525,000 first place prize and to take his lifetime winnings from live tournaments past the $7,300,000 mark.

The 58 players who parted company with €25,000 were whittled down on the first day of play until only 36 of them had chips in front of them and these were reduced to the final table of eight on Saturday. Each of these eight talented players were each guaranteed to take home no less than €45,000 but each had an eye of the prestigious title and of course more than half a million Euros.

Leading the eight players into battle was Galen Hall, the man who won the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event in January for $2,300,000. Halls 798,000 haul were 88,000 more than second placed Benny Spindler and 91,000 more than Finlands Juha Helppi. Despite being well stacked at the start of the final table, Hall was eliminated in seventh place at the hands of Spindler when Hall found himself all in with a pair of aces against Spindlers queens and the latter spiked a set to send Hall to the rail.

Spindler used his new 1,200,000 stack to great effect, putting maximum pressure on his opponents by raising what seemed like every single hand. He was also responsible for eliminating Vanessa Rousso (5th) and David Sands (4th) before ElkY took care of Helppi to send the tournament to the heads-up stage.

ElkY trailed his German opponent by a substantial 2,000,000 to 700,000 chips but was back on level terms within just a matter of minutes. Spindler called ElkYs 533,000 shove on a board reading Th-3d-7h-9c-X with king-ten only to see ElkY sat there with a pot-winning pair of jacks.

The final hand took place around 90 minutes after the heads up battle commenced and some will say it was a cooler of a hand. Spindler limped on the button and ElkY opted to check his option meaning the very loose-aggressive duo saw the 2c-9c-4d flop cheaply. ElkY put his foot down on the gas and bet 33,000, a bet that was raised to 90,000 by Spindler, a common occurrence throughout the battle. However, this hand was different as ElkY stuck in another raise, this one to 223,000 but Spindler stayed in the hand and made the call.

The turn was the Jc and it was greeted by a 277,000 bet from ElkY and a call from his German opponent. The river saw the 9s come into play and ElkY wasted no time in moving all in. Spindler counted out his stack and discovered he has 480,000 behind and made the call, turning over Kc9d for trip nines, only to be bested by the 9h4h of ElkY that had improved to a full house!

ElkYs win was the second High Roller victory of his career so far, his first coming at the 2009 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure than won him $433,500. Although this latest €525,000 addition to his bankroll is pretty substantial it still fell way short of his largest cash to date, which stands at a gargantuan $2,000,000 that he won for his win at the 2008 PCA Main Event.

Final table payouts

1st: Bertrand ElkY Grospellier: €525,000 2nd: Benny Spindler: €316,000 3rd: Juha Helppi: €185,000 4th: David Sands: €135,000 5th: Vanessa Rousso: €100,000 6th: Alex Repik: €72,000 7th: Galen Hall: €57,500 8th: Peter Jetten: €45,000

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