Has anyone ever heard of the Dream Team? Yes ? No ?

The Dream Team were once one of the top Starcraft teams in Korea, and that generally translates as one of the top teams in the world. Unfortunately, the players that you see in the photo are now retired, the two caucasians that are in the photo are Guillaume "Grrr..." Patry and Bertrand "Elky" Grospellier, both of them were regarded as two of the best Starcraft players in their prime. Both of them moved to Korea to persue their dream of becoming the next big thing in e-Sports. Both of them were in the same team, The AMD DreamTeam.

In every sporting event, the only real thing that's going against athletes is their youth. In Korea, due to the increasing standards in e-Sports, 25 is considered as the maximum age for a professional Starcraft player. Most cyberathletes who retire are most likely to disappear into thin air, but for Guillaume and Bertrand, poker was the way to go.

Guillaume, originally from Canada, moved to Korea to turn his passion into his career, when the time came for him to retire, he turned to online poker and web designing for income. His venture proved him right as he managed to turn poker into a full time career, he has been seen in several poker tournaments around the world mainly in Asia, his creme de la creme was a 4th place finish at 2007 Asia Pacific Poker Tour in Macau with a $2,500 buy-in earning him $56,672.

Similarly, Bertrand a.k.a Elky turned to poker as well, soon after being introduced to PokerStars, Elky realized that many of the skilss he'd picked up from gaming we were suited to poker. Since then, he started making a profit on a regular basis and has become one of PokerStars highest earners and was the first ever player to reach the Supernova Elite level in the PokerStars VIP level. With several live tournaments 1st place finishes, including a nice payday of $2,000,000 for finishing 1st at the PokerStars Carribean Adventure and another $1,411,025 for his 1st place finish at World Poker Tour Festa al Lago, both in 2008, Elky has proven that he is indeed a force to be reckoned with in both the online and live poker scene. Elky has since introduced poker to several of his Starcraft friends, Lex "RasZi" Veldhuis for example.

Elky- Before

Elky- After

With both players making transitions from gaming to poker and profiting from it, one has to wonder if there actually is a connection between poker and gaming.

This article is merely for interest purposes and there are no intentions of promoting gambling.