Bodog Beat

French online poker pro Bertrand "elKy" Grospellier took down the $2 million first-place prize at the EPT Caribbean Adventure. (Image Courtesy of Poquer-Red.com)

At the beginning of the final table of the EPT Caribbean Adventure, the smart money would've been on CardPlayer's 2007 Player of the Year, David "The Dragon" Pham. However, even the dominant chip stack that Pham took into the final table couldn't hold of the onslaught of Frenchman Bertrand "elKy" Grospellier.

Grospellier eliminated the first three players of the final eight – Richard Fohrenbach, Christian Harder and Joe "BigEgypt" Elpayaa – helping him build a chip stack that would eventually propel him into the lead and to victory. In the meantime, Pham found his stack inversely proportional to Grospellier's. That is to say that while the online pro's was on the rise, his was on a very sharp decline.

Unfortunately, putting Craig Hopkins out in fifth place and absorbing those chips couldn't stem the bleeding. Pham would quickly follow in fourth place, put out by the "Dragon Slayer" Grospellier.

Once Kris Kuykendall had been eliminated in third place, that left only Hafiz Khan between Grospellier and the title. The heads-up match did not take long to play itself out. It ended when Grospellier caught Khan with his hand in the cookie jar on a huge bluff and sent him home in second for his transgression.

Here are the full final table payouts:

1. Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier – $2,000,000
2. Hafiz Khan – $1,094,976
3. Kris Kuykendall – $800,000
4. David Pham – $600,000
5. Craig Hopkins – $450,000
6. Joseph Elpayaa – $300,000
7. Christian Harder – $200,000
8. Richard Fohrenbach – $150,000

The next stop for the EPT will put it back on European soil where it belongs at the EPT German Open in Dortmund, instead of hijacking innocent islands to join a continent in which it is out of place. So, if you want to head to Germany to play poker, or maybe even Denmark, Poland, or Italy, qualify online for the EPT by winning a Bodog "Player's Choice" package.