While the European Poker Tours inaugural Champion of Champions €100,000 freeroll kicked off Friday with 50 former champions from the first seven seasons, Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospellier and Brian Hastings found success in EPT side events.

After winning the EPT Grand Final High Roller event and €525,000 a few days ago, ElkY also won the €10,000 + €300 NL Turbo High Roller tournament for €153,000 yesterday.

ElkY tweeted ""Won the 10k turbo @ EPT Madrid for 153k€. Tournament of champions tomorrow, 2 in a row for the 1st time?"

This latest cash pushes Grospellier to nearly $8 million in live tournament winnings.

Brian Hastings, primarily an online high stakes PLO player, finally made his first live cash by taking second in the EPT Madrid's €5,000 Heads-Up side event. Hastings collected €46,200 for finishing second losing a tough heads-up match to fellow American Andrew "luckychewy" Lichtenberger, who took home €70,000.

In the Champion of Champions event, the 50 former EPT champions each began play today with 100,000 chips with rapid-fire 20 minute levels taking to ensure a single winner later Friday night where €100,000 in future EPT buy-ins will go to the top four finishers.

1st place - EPT8 Passport worth €50,000
2nd place - EPT8 Passport worth €25,000
3rd place - EPT8 Passport worth €15,000
4th place - EPT8 Passport worth €10,000

Notable players entered:

Rob Hollink
Pascal Perrault
Brandon Schaefer
Alexander Stevic
Jeff Williams
Mats Iremark
Jan Boubli
Peter Jepsen
Andreas Hoivold
Roland de Wolfe
Thang Duc Nguyen
Vicky Coren
Bjorn-Erik Glenne
Glen Chorny
Jason Mercier
Michael Schulze
Tim Vance
Mike McDonald
Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospellier
Arnaud Mattern
Joseph Mouawad
Pieter de Korver
Constant Rijkenberg
Sandra Naujoks
Jens Kyllönen
João Barbosa
Will Fry
Nicolas Chouity
Liv Boeree
Anton Wigg
Jan Skampa
Antonio Matias
Christophe Benzimra
Aaron Gustavson
Carter Phillips
Galen Hall
Roberto Romanello
Kent Lundmark
Michael Eiler
David Vamplew
Kevin Stani
Ben Wilinofsky
Vladimir Geshkenbein
Noah Boeken
Maxim Lykov
and others

EPT Champion of Champions kicks off and ElkY and Hastings prosper