Cancer Takes Aussie Poker Pro Kelvin Beattie at 44

Rose Varrelli | March 7, 2022 | Updated on: December 12th, 2022

Those who follow poker from afar know Australian names like Joe Hachem and Jeff Lisandro, Michael Addamo and Kahle Burns, and Mel Judah and Billy Argyros. Kelvin Beattie wasn’t in that list of world-renowned players, but the Australian poker community knew him. In fact, players around the world knew of some of his accomplishments, mostly online. And his PokerNerve poker training site helped players far and wide. Beattie died in recent weeks after a long battle with cancer.

Beattie Playing Live

Kelvin Beattie started playing cash games in the Crown Melbourne poker room in 1998. He started at the low limits and moved up in the years that followed. He paid special attention to bankroll management. And he was a consistent winner in the games.

As the poker boom began in 2003, Beattie took a shot at some live poker tournaments and found success there. His first few cashes on record happened at the Melbourne Hold’em Championships in 2004. Two years later, in that same series, he scored his first two wins, both in Hold’em.

Poker thrived in Australia after 2005 due to Joe Hachem’s WSOP Main Event victory. What was already a growing industry exploded. Beattie benefitted from the resulting cash games. He played tournament series as well and even traveled to the World Series of Poker in 2008, but cash games were his primary source of income.

Later in his live poker career, he traveled to Las Vegas more frequently. He also traveled the Asia-Pacific region to play events in Macau, Seoul, Manila, Phnom Penh, and Taipei City.

In total, Beattie amassed more than $194K in live tournament earnings alone.

Aces Up Playing Online

Beattie was best known in online poker circles. Though he didn’t transition his live cash and tournament play to online until 2011, he quickly racked up accomplishments.

Many of his online poker final tables and wins happened on PokerStars. He played there under the screen name aces_up4108. He won more than $3.1M there in that decade, including major titles. For example, he won a PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) title. He accumulated much more success on other poker sites as well, including Full Tilt Poker, partypoker, and 888poker.

Throughout his life, he earned more than $4.5M in online poker tournaments.

Triple Crown Elite

Beattie was also among the elite players to win ten Triple Crown awards online.

PocketFives calculated and tracked online poker wins for players across platforms. Players could earn a Triple Crown by winning three online tournaments across three different poker networks in one seven-day period. The tournaments had to be multi-table ones, offer a prize pool of $10K or higher, and attract at least 100 players.

Beattie won his first Triple Crown in 2010, while still playing a fair amount of live poker. He then won one in 2011 and another in 2012 but grabbed three in 2013 and another three in 2014. That first 2014 Triple Crown was awarded on 1 January – New Year’s Day. He then followed up with another award in 2015, putting him at ten total Triple Crowns.

The top five Triple Crown winners in online poker history included Beattie. Those top players, in order of wins, are:

Chris “moorman1” Moorman (UK) = 30 Triple Crowns
Nicolas “PokerKaiser” Fierro (Chile) = 21
Peter “Belabacsi” Traply (Hungary) = 12
Kelvin “aces_up4108” Beattie (Australia) = 10
Sam “TheSquid” Grafton (UK) = 10

Entrepreneur Beattie

Beattie took his online poker accomplishments and transformed them into a poker training course. He developed an MTT (multi-table tournament) course online to transform players at any skill level – even beginners – to winning players. That Road to Success MTT Poker Course became the basis for PokerNerve.com.

The site also offered courses on bounty tournaments and GTO ranges.

PokerNerve also hosted a weekly league via a PokerStars Home Game. It was a low buy-in $5.50 game with various structures and formats. Players won prizes, and Beattie tracked everyone’s play on a leaderboard.

For a time, Beattie also lived in Japan. There, he started PokerTrainingJP, a poker training site that also offered a poker forum for strategy talk and a shop for merchandise.

There were YouTube channels and various courses for players. Beattie had a Twitch stream. And he offered private poker coaching on an hourly basis. He took poker and his successes in the game and made it into a multi-faceted business.

Too Young

Beattie died on 25 February 2022 after nearly a year-long battle with cancer. His family was devastated. His obituary stated that his wife Yuka survived him, as did their children Mia and Tiana. Parents Pat and Jim and siblings Chris and Gav survived Beattie as well.

Per the obituary, “Your bravery was a true inspiration. You never gave up fighting even when your struggle was so great. We love you so much and you will forever be in our hearts.”