This Week in Poker: December 13 – 19
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- PG News December 20, 2017
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8 mins Read
In the PokerGuru feature ‘This Week in Poker’ we bring to you the weekly round up of the biggest online scores by Indian MTT players along with the top stories from both the live and online poker circuit.
Here are this week`s top stories
Yet another adrenaline filled week has come to a close with a lot of exciting developments. If last week last seemed fast paced, the action this past week accelerated further, with excited poker players simply lapping it up.
Online action continued unabated with several big winners emerging from the virtual felts. Adda52’s Poker Millionaire Tour series concluded this week with Joe ‘joecsaju’ Saju taking down the Main Event for ₹7.80 Lakhs. For this, he claims our “PokerGuru Star of the Week” title.
The week also saw several historic domestic developments. Kwan Entertainment joined hands with Mediarex Sports & Entertainmentfor Global Player League India, online poker startup 9stacks raised ₹10 crores in seed funding and Golden Play Pvt. Ltd. received a provisional casino license in Sikkim.
In another important update, Goa CM Manohar Parrikar assured that the casino policy for shifting the offshore casinos out from River Mandovi would be announced within a week.
Tournament action in Prague and Sydney kept us busy as both 2017 PokerStars Championship Prague and WSOP Circuit Sydney wrapped up their respective year-end finales.
Well a poker update without PokerStars is never complete and this week too, there was a lot happening at PokerStars as they made many big announcements. Firstly, PokerStars announced its $25,000 Players Championship that is slated to kick off in January 2017 in Bahamas. They also announced the revival of regional poker tours like European Poker Tour (EPT), Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) and the Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT). The Stars Group owned giant further announced its Winter Series boasting of $25.4 million guarantee that kicks off on Christmas day. French PokerStars also got liquidity-sharing go-ahead from French regulator ARJEL.
In international tournaments, we bring you more reports from WSOP Circuit Bike Main Event, WPTDeepStacks Deauville Main Event and Mid-States Poker Tour Season 8 Finale.
Online Railbird Report
Well the week in itself was rather dull with only a few scores from the Indian community on international sites. However, tournament action was hot on domestic sites with Joe ‘joecsaju’ Saju taking down Adda52’s Poker Millionaire Tour Main Event for ₹7.80 lakhs. For this, Saju takes our “PokerGuru Star of the Week” title.
Other notable scores of the week –
Amit ‘bblacklegend’ Jain won ₹8 lakhs for 1st place in Adda52 ‘Poker Millionaire Tour High Roller’
‘Vivek25’ won ₹5 lakhs for 1st place in PokerBaazi ‘Baazi Super Sunday ₹15 lakhs GTD With ₹5 Lakhs GTD for 1st Place’
Krishan ‘kalu9999’ Kumar won ₹2.70 lakhs for 1st place in Adda52 ‘Poker Millionaire Tour SuperStack’
‘sharshan1’ won ₹2.70 lakhs for 1st place in Adda52 ‘Sunday Suits’
Vikram ‘VikramKumar’ Kumar won ₹1.53 lakhs for 1st place in PokerBaazi ‘Grinders Main Event’
‘RockyDon’ won ₹1.40 lakhs for 1st place in PokerBaazi ‘Baazi Super Sunday (5 lakhs GTD) (DeepStack Turbo Re-Entry)’
Anant ‘Fi5h4rapper’ Purohit won $1,681.64 for 2nd place in the PokerStars ‘Bounty Builder $33, $20K GTD’
Vikram ‘thedead parrots’ Singh won $1.470.34 for 2nd place in the PokerStars ‘$109 NLHE, $3K GTD’
Anmol ‘anmols’ A Srivats won $774.24 plus an additional $1,262.48 in bounties for 1st place in the PokerStars ‘$55 NLO8 [6-Max, Hyper-Turbo, Progressive KO], $5K GTD
Shravan ‘shravanc13’ Chhabria won $671.17 for 216th place in the PokerStars ‘$215 Sunday Million’
PokerStars Announces Winter Series With $25.4M GTD
The world’s biggest online poker site PokerStars will be hosting their third-biggest online series of the year named Winter Series. The two-week long series guarantees a whopping $25.4 million across its schedule of 152 exciting events and kicks off on Christmas Day (December 25, 2017).
Read the complete story here.
Khelo365 VIP Leaderboard Race Ends Soon
The go-to Indian poker portal Khelo365 is currently hosting its VIP Leaderboard race which awards the top eight places with a chance of celebrating New Year’s in style with an all-expense paid luxurious VIP trip to Pattaya, Thailand. The top four finishers will also win expensive automobiles while the top 25 places will be rewarded with bonus money to play on Khelo365. The leaderboard race ends this week on December 25, at midnight.
Read the complete story here.
Adda52Poker Millionaire Tour Series
India’s largest online poker site – Adda52’s most popular tournament series – Poker Millionaire Tour (PMT) concluded this week with ₹65 lakhs awarded in the three of its biggest events namely the headline Main Event, High Roller and SuperStack.
Joe ‘joecsaju’ Saju took down the Main Event for ₹7.80 lakhs, Adda52 Team Pro Amit ‘bblacklegend’ Jain took down the High Roller event for ₹8 lakhs and Krishan ‘kalu9999’ Kumar shipped the SuperStack event for ₹2.70 lakhs.
Read the complete story here.
Mediarex and Kwan Entertainment Partner Up to Bring Global Player League India
A breakthrough development for poker and e-sports in the country came to light this week as Kwan Entertainment (India’s biggest talent management company) and Mediarex Sports & Entertainment (GPI, GPL & The Hendon Mob owner) announced a multi-year strategic partnership to bring the Global Player League (GPL) to India. Mediarex has always worked towards sportifying poker and now with this transition, the company is looking to concentrate on both poker and e-sports.
Read the complete story here.
9stacks Raises ₹10 Crores in Seed Funding
In the biggest seed funding raised by an online poker site in the country till date, Delhi-based online gaming startup 9stacks has received $1.55 million (~approx. ₹10 Crores) from a clutch of investors. The online poker startup founded by Sudhir Kamath, Pratik Kumar, Abhinav Nigam and Rishab Mathur plans to utilize the investment to improve its platform, add more resources and prepare a marketing strategy.
Read the complete story here.
Golden Gaming Gets Provisional License For Sikkim Casino
Golden Play Pvt. Ltd., on December 13 acquired a provisional license to set up a casino at its five-star hotel D’Wang Residency of Gangtok. The license is valid for a period in six months in which the company needs to set up the casino infrastructure and apply for a permanent or ‘go live’ license. The company also plans to branch out to Nepal and other territories.
Read the complete story here.
Goa Casino Policy Expected This Week Says Goa CM
Goa CM Manohar Parrikar assured the House during the State Legislative Assembly session that the policy to govern the Casino industry would be announced within a week. The main agenda for the policy seems to be the relocation of the five operational offshore casinos from River Mandovi.
Read the complete story here.
PokerStars Makes Two Major Announcements – New $9M Value-Added Players No Limit Hold’em Championship & Regional Tours to Return
Online giant PokerStars came out with two major announcements this past week. They announced a new annual live event named PokerStars Players No Limit Hold’em Championship (PSPC) with a buy-in of $25,000. The company will infuse at least $9 million of added value to the prize pool and award 300 free packages named Platinum Passes (worth $30,000).
In another major announcement, PokerStars is reviving its popular regional tours i.e. European Poker Tour (EPT), Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) and the Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT), which will make a comeback in 2018.
Read the complete story here.
French PokerStars Gets Liquidity-Sharing Go Ahead from Regulator ARJEL
PokerStars France made news this week and for all the right reasons. The French gaming regulator ARJEL, on December 15, announced that the authorization to share liquidity between four countries namely France, Italy, Spain and Portugal has been granted to Reel Malta Ltd, the operator of PokerStars France.
Read the complete story here.
2017 PokerStars Championship Prague
Headlining the live tournament action this past week was the 2017 PokerStars Championship Prague that was hosted at Hilton Hotel Prague. The headline Main Event drew a huge field of 855 entries creating a massive €4,146,750 prize pool and besting them all was a small to mid-stakes recreational player from France named Kalidou Sow who emerged victorious after the six-day long grind. Sow pocketed €675,000 for his first-place finish after a heads-up deal with Jason Wheeler.
Kalidou Sow
Read the complete story here.
Another big event of the series i.e. €10,300 High Roller played out this week with Hong Kong based 25-year-old Danny Tang outlasting the field of 256 entries to pocket the first-place purse worth €381,000 following a heads-up deal with Spain’s Sergio Aido.
Danny Tang
Read the complete story here.
WSOP Circuit Sydney
Live action was at its peak at World Series of Poker (WSOP) Circuit Sydney too which was hosted at Star Poker Room in Sydney, Australia. The series commenced on November 28 and concluded on December 18 after awarding 14 coveted WSOP Gold Circuit Rings.
The Main Event registered 1,067 entries and after four days of intense battle, Michael Kanaan topped them all and walked away with a cool $394,837, WSOP Circuit ring and will represent Star Poker in the $1 million guaranteed Global Casino Championship.
Michael Kanaan
Read the complete story here.
Another highlight event of the series was the $20,000 High Roller where local talent Andy Lee defeated the 36-entry field to bank the $273,600 top prize.
Andy Lee
Read the complete story here.
Jared Jaffee Wins WSOP Circuit Bike Main Event
This week, Jared Jaffee bested a field of 687 runners at the $1,675 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Circuit Main Event hosted at the Bicycle Casino in LA to pocket the first-place purse of $211,220. Jaffe defeated Brendan Baksh heads-up and attributed his victory to a lucky Buddha trinket given to him by Sam Panzica.
Jared Jaffe
Read the complete story here.
Bruno Benveniste Wins WPTDeepStacks Deauville Main Event
Bruno Benveniste topped a field of 421 runners at the PMU.fr WPTDeepStacks Deauville Festival Main Event to bank the €93,700 top prize which also includes a €2,000 package to the WPTDeepStacks Berlin €1,500 Main Event. Benveniste locked up the title after defeating Sandro Pitzanti heads-up.
Bruno Benveniste
Read the complete story here.
Ben Marsh Wins Mid-States Poker Tour Season 8 Finale
32-year-old Ben Marsh outlasted the 493-player field at the Mid-States Poker Tour (MSPT) Season 8 finale at Minnesota’s Canterbury Park and won the top prize worth $102,493. Marsh also become one of the nine players in the tour’s history to win multiple titles.
Ben Marsh
Read the complete story here.
That’s it for this week, folks. We will return same time next week with all the important news from the poker world.
Related Articles:
2. PokerStars to Wrap Up 2017 in Style With $25.4M GTD Winter Series
4. Mediarex Partners With Kwan Entertainment to Bring Global Player League India
5. Online Poker Startup 9stacks Raises ₹10 Crores in Seed Funding
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