Is there any connection between internet texas holdem
and video games? It may surprise you to learn that the answer is yes.
If you’re not convinced, look at the facts. Bertrand Grospelier, known as ElKY online,
has won a fortune playing online poker.
He has a World Poker Tour championship and a European Poker Tour
championship. Before 2006, he was famous in certain circles, but not
for playing poker. ElKY was a professional video game player in South
Korea, one of the highest ranked players of a real time strategy game
called Starcraft in the world.

Video Gaming Poker Players

ElKY isn’t the only one who parlayed professional video game
excellence into poker stardom.
Ivan Demidov has been a professional
Starcraft and Warcraft player who regularly made the tournament
circuit. In 2008, he was the runner-up for in the 2008 World Series of
Poker main event and placed 3rd in the WSOP Europe main event. Demidov
is another pro video gamer who is one of the rising stars on the world
poker scene.

What Video Games Bring to Poker

Those who play in video game tournaments are well-equipped for the
poker scene, because video game tournaments, like poker tournaments,
require a tremendous amount of focus. Video gamers play marathon
sessions, and in tournament play, one mistake can be your last. This
parallels poker tournaments, where a big stack can be whittled down to
nothing in a few bad plays, and where the biggest tournaments may take
days to complete.

How Video Gamers Find Poker

Those who like video games will probably first encounter poker on the
Internet. Since you can play poker tournaments and cash games online
with just a computer, an Internet connection and a mouse, just as with
video games, there is a natural progression from one to the other. Once
video game players see how successful they are at online poker, many
are tempted to move to live games. This is not to say that everyone who
is proficient at video games will be good at poker, and it certainly
doesn’t mean that you have to be a good video game player to
be good at poker, but there is some overlap between the two games,
especially where
Internet poker is concerned.