Seat 5: Gilles Simon, 24, Netherlands - 8,075,000
As the winner of PokerStars’ first Dare to Stream competition, we were all able to witness Gilles Simon’s first foray into professional poker back in 2019. Back then, when he was predominantly known by his Twitch handle, “Ghilley”, Simon’s average buy-in (ABI) was a modest $10 – a far cry from the $25,000 buy-in PokerStars Players Championship (PSPC) he’d just won entry to.
Fast forward to 2023, and Simon (“TaxationIsTheft” on PokerStars) has enjoyed a breakout year in online poker, first cashing a $215 online event for a staggering $257k, then taking down his first World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) title with a $109 Phase win for $115k.
But what about those years in between? We don’t know as much about that period in Simon’s career by design. “I was like, OK, I’m young, and with this Platinum Pass, I have an opportunity to keep on growing and building myself as a poker player,” he says.
So Simon left Twitch behind and threw himself into studying and playing poker. He was taken in by a group of experienced players who coached him and backed him, rocketing his ABI up to $200. He moved to the poker hotbed of Vienna. And for the next two-and-a-half years, he put in the reps until the big scores arrived (and arrive they did).
But Simon has yet to capture a breakout live score, something he hopes to change here at EPT Cyprus. He says it would be “an insane win” to have on his poker resume.