Gilles Simon is a professional poker hailing from Valkenburg, Netherlands. Known in online poker circles and to his friends as "Ghilley" Simon's rise through the poker ranks was nothing short of incredible.
Simon had made a name for himself as a Twitch streamer when, in 2019, he won a Platinum Pass to the PokerStars Players Championship (PSPC) from PokerStars in the site's "Dare2Stream" competition. Simon was playing online tournaments with an average buy-in of $10 at the time he won his Platinum Pass, and was suddenly thrust into a $25,000 buy-in live event.
Although Simon returned home from the PSPC empty-handed, rubbing shoulders with some of poker's elite stars spurred him to improve his skills and become one of those top-tier grinders himself.
In 2022, Simon cashes in several side events at the PokerStars European Poker Tour (EPT) Barcelona and Prague festivals. During August and September of the same year, Simon racked up five cashes in World Series of Poker (WSOP) online events hosted on GGPoker.
November 2022 saw Simon announce his arrival on the live poker scene, with a fourth-place finish in the €3,000 Master Classics of Poker in Amsterdam coming with an €87,043 bankroll and confidence-boosting payday.
Another fourth-place finish in a $1,100 buy-in event in Las Vegas earned Simon $44,378 in June 2023.
October 2023 saw the EPT head to Cyprus for the first time in its long and illustrious history, and Simon was one of the 1,320 entrants who created a $6,402,000 prize pool. Simon was guaranteed a career-best score once he'd navigated his way to the EPT Cyprus Main Event final table, but the Dutchman was content with banking a large score; he wanted the glory that only champions experience.
Simon found himself heads-up against Italian veteran Andrea Dato. The final hand saw Dato min-raise to 1,000,000, and Simon call. Dato led for 500,000 on the eight-seven-deuce rainbow flop, Simon raised to 1,500,000 then called when Dato moved all-in for 5,350,000. Dato showed ace-jack, and Simon revealed king-eight. The turn and river were both bricks, handing Simon the title of 2023 PokerStars EPT Cyprus Main Event champion and a cool $1,042,000 in prize moneu.
