9 Nov
With the poker world still reeling from the recent changes to HUD’s and associated 3rd-party software – most notably by PokerStars this week – there is a small band of successful and happy players still playing, grinding and Twitching away with their HUD’s almost untouched by the recent changes.
We are of course talking about ‘The Jivaro Crew’ as I will call them, professional players who are using the innovative new Jivaro HUD software. Amongst others, the crew consists of Randy ‘nanonoko’ Lew, Bertrnd ‘ElkY’ Grospelier, Jeff Gross and Jamie Staples and here we’ll take a look at their achievements in poker and what we might expect from them in the future.
Let’s start with the best known online player from the crew, Randy ‘nanonoko’ Lew…
Randy ‘nanonoko’ Lew
The 30-year old Californian is famous in online circles, but less so on the live circuit, despite cashing for over $1million in tournaments. A big chunk of this came in the 2011 APPT event in Macau, where he took down the title and $484, 617.
Online, however, he rules the mid-stakes tables with an iron fist – multi-tabling up to 24 at a time and pulling in millions of dollars as he does so. He was the focus of a short PokerStars documentary back in 2011 telling the story of “how he became a Supernova Elite VIP and online poker’s multi-million dollar man.”
Strangely for such a talented player he never really sought out the high-stakes online tables until very recently, preferring instead to stick with the $5-10 range, only adding more tables as he became more proficient as a winner.
Highstakesdb.com gives an explanation for his phenomenal multi-table win-rate, saying, “The nationally-ranked video game player spent hours honing his lightening quick reflexes, and he was able to parlay these skills onto the poker table.” In fact he competed on the video-gaming circuit for some years before discovering online poker through friends, but it didn’t take him too long to transfer his skills.
When Randy ‘nanoko’ Lew does try his hand at the higher-stakes, as he did in The Big Game a few years back, his skill is evident – taking on the likes of Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu and Phil Laak. Perhaps only his insistence on playing only NLHE has prevented him from becoming one of the very top poker players in the world.
Although he has opted out of having his long-term results tracked, he can be easily found playing online, and is one of the latest pros to use the Jivaro HUD – perhaps using his great experience to spot the changing trend in 3rd-party software which has recently hit home.
Watch Nanonoko using Jivaro HUD
Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospelier
ElkY’ Grospelier is one of those pros who seems to have been around forever, but in fact it’s only 10 years since he found his way to the world of poker via – as with Randy Lew – the world of gaming, in which he excelled. His Starcraft and Warcraft world rankings were as high as number 2 before his retirement in the early noughties, and the subsequent lure of poker.
As with many players, it was an early ‘big win’ which afforded him the opportunity to turn full-time professional – a $399,952 payday for his 2nd place at EPT season 3 in Copenhagen providing the springboard which the Frenchman used to great effect.
Almost exactly one year later, in January 2008, he bagged the EPT PokerStars Caribbean Adventure crown, and with it exactly $2million. He has since won 10 titles, made countless final tables and amassed over $10million in career tournament earnings.
Grospelier has several claims to fame, the most ‘crow-worthy’ being his hat-trick of titles across the WSOP, WPT and EPT. The 7-card stud bracelet of 2011 adding to the PCA and the WPT Festa da Lago titles of 2008. He also – just to prove his online credentials – took down 2 titles in the 2009 WCOOP.
As a fellow member of TeamPokerStarsPro, and of my own ‘Jivaro Crew’ nomenclature, ‘ElkY’ can still be found grinding away at the big tournaments on Stars, though perhaps less successfully recently than in his big hey-days of the mid-noughties and his outstanding 2013 season.
As a thoroughly-likeable poker pro (not entirely a common phrase!) Grospelier is a fully-fledged ‘Twitterer’ and now streams live on Twitch with over 32,000 followers – his Jivaro HUD connections centre-stage on-screen as he plays.
His interactive approach to modern poker may have taken the sharp edge off his play, but he’s the sort of guy who will never be short of an invite to a poker game ever!
Watch Elky using Jivaro HUD
Jeff ‘kidwhowon’ Gross
Jeffrey Gross, the 3rd member of the Jivaro crew, may not be a household name in the poker world but he’s a pro who has been steadily living the poker dream for some 10 years, winning over $2million in the process in live play, and a decent chunk -$500,000 or so – online under the moniker ‘kidwhowon’.
Like many others, the Ann Arbor, Michigan-born pro started his life with different dreams, actually playing 4 years of division 1 soccer through his University of South Carolina scholarship. Like most students, the poker he learned at age 14 wasn’t entirely absent from his ‘schooldays’.
As everyone knows, however, when the poker bug hits it hits hard and the 29-year old started taking the game seriously in 2010, a $109,000 payday for 5th in the WSOP $1K event providing proof that he had the game for life as a pro. The biggest wins have eluded Gross- so far – but his busy 2013 earnings of close to $900,000 proves he can mix it with the best.
His Twitch page describes him as a High Stakes cash game player with 5 WSOP final tables to his name, and his Flow JeffGrossPoker show runs daily – Gross, like the others, using his Jivaro HUD while explaining his moves at the table with a faithful following of some 650 Twitch fans eagerly watching on.
You can find Jeff Gross using Jivaro HUD on his Twitch stream.
Jaime ‘PokerStaples’ Staples
The young Canadian from Lethbridge, Alberta is well-known for his mass-table online play and rarely competes live, but his Twitch broadcasts and Twitter feeds give you a good idea of how much he enjoys his poker. And he’s no slouch, having won over $500,000 on the virtual felt.
Almost every day he can be found tweeting some of the most amusing poker-related stuff on the net…
…and with 44,500 followers on his Twitch broadcasts (and over two and a half million ‘likes’) it’s clear that ‘PokerStaples’ has a mass appeal which many pros would die for.
At 23-years old, he says he is ‘on a break’ from school until he decides his future direction, with poker being a “part-time” job for the moment, but if he can continue to score well in the small-to-mid-stake multi-table tournaments he relishes, and can combine his broadcasts with winning, there’s no reason this talented young man can’t make it as a full-time pro.
As with the others, his Jivaro connections are at the forefront of his broadcasts, and his tutorials on YouTube were among the first to promote the only HUD which seems to be sailing through the troubled waters of ‘3rd-party software restrictions at the moment.
Watch Pokerstaples Jivaro HUD Tutorial
So, four very different poker pros in my ‘Jivaro Crew’ and it will be interesting to see how they navigate the changing landscape of the modern poker world.
