This Week in Poker: May 10 – 16

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

Another torrid week passed by, with poker players preferring air-conditioned environs, for the heat of action, avoiding the temperatures that soared outside. This past week, the poker world was dominated by online action with the ongoing PokerStars SCOOP and 888poker`s XL Inferno Series.

Simultaneously, India’s biggest online poker tournament series i.e. PokerBaazi Premier League Season VI concluded this past week with several big winners taking their share from the massive prize pools. Nishant ‘nishant177’ Sharma took down the highlight event of the series i.e. ₹50 Lakhs guaranteed the Main Event pocketing a cool ₹11.95 Lakhs.

Danish Shaikh headlined the online leaderboard with an impressive third place finish in the PokerStars SCOOP-30-M: $215 NLHE [6-Max, Sunday Warm-Up SE], $500K GTD event and is our “PokerGuru Star of the Week”.

PokerStars also crowned its second millionaire through the $1 Million Spin & Go promotion with “meks2410” hitting the jackpot in just six minutes, all for a mere $10 investment.

Live action will be picking up soon with the PokerStars Championship Sochi that is slated to run from May 20-31. India`s poster boy and Team PokerStars Pro Aditya ‘Adi Agarwal’ Agarwal is confirmed to be in attendance.

The world’s biggest poker extravaganza i.e. World Series of Poker (WSOP) is also just around the corner and as always the megatron of poker tournaments is going to be the center of attraction for its entire duration. All signs indicate that this year will be the biggest-ever showing by Team India at the series till date. To shake things up a bit, WSOP recently announced that the Main Event would now conclude in July replacing the age-old November Nine concept.

As usual rounding up our weekly recap are tournament reports from around the globe including WPT Amsterdam Season XVI, partypoker MILLIONS North America, California State Poker Championship and the WPTDeepStacks Amsterdam.

Online Railbird Report

Danish ‘danish7’ Shaikh made the strongest finish at this years SCOOP by an Indian at so far and almost earned himself his second COOP title. He missed the title by a whisker with an impressive third place finish in the PokerStars SCOOP-30-M: $215 NLHE [6-Max, Sunday Warm-Up SE], $500K GTD event and for this he takes our “PokerGuru Star of the Week” title.

Danish Shaikh

Sriharsha ‘indiandurr’ Doddapaneni was another Indian in the firing line for a SCOOP title who took fifth place for $17,610.00 in the PokerStars ‘SCOOP-29-M: $109 NLHE [8-Max, Sunday Kickoff SE], $200K GTD’ event.

Other notable finishes include –

Karan ‘Karan Radia’ Radia won $4,765.00 for 2nd place in the 888 Poker ‘XL Inferno #73 – $30,000 Knockout’ and won $1,860.00 for 2nd place in the 888 Poker ‘XL Inferno #118 – $10,000 ShowMe!’ event.

Anantha ‘Anish-1’ K won $3,841.20 for 4th place in the PokerStars ‘SCOOP-19-L: $11 NLHE [Progressive KO], $100K GTD’

Piyush ‘Piyush16’ Gupta won $2,816.00 for 92nd place in the PokerStars ‘SCOOP-12-H: $1,050 NLHE [Super Tuesday SE], $1M GTD’ and won $1,174.38 for 1st place in the PokerStars ‘$55 NLHE [6-Max, Hyper-Turbo], $3K GTD’

Anil ‘BigBlufferAY’ Yadav won $2,349.20 for 2nd place in the PokerStars ‘Hot $109, $10K GTD’ and also won $2,329.83 for 2nd place in the PokerStars ‘Hot $109, $10K GTD’. Yadav also made $1,830.43 for 2nd place in the PokerStars ‘Bounty Builder $82, $20K GTD’

Sahil ‘$lim$hady19’ Chutani won $2,200.07 for 6th place in the PokerStars ‘Big $109, $40K GTD’

Pranay ‘mitarachi89’ Kapoor won $1,551.50 for 17th place in the PokerStars ‘SCOOP-11-M: $55+R PLO [6-Max], $100K GTD’

‘xmmukesh’ won $1,134.90 for 6th place in the Party Poker ‘Powerfest #027 – $20K GTD Freezeout’

PokerStars SCOOP 2017

After an adrenaline pumping start of this year’s SCOOP, action continued to dominate on the world’s biggest online poker platform with several more champions staking claim on the coveted SCOOP title.

Jerry “hummylun” Wong took down the SCOOP-14-H ($2,100 Razz) event for $60,270. The same day saw conclusion of the SCOOP-15-H ($25,000 NLH [8-Max, High Roller]) event, which was taken down by “BIack88” for $702,658.75. The other High roller event i.e. SCOOP-15-M ($2,100 NLH [8-Max, High Roller]) attracted 772 players and outlasting them all was Brazil-based Rick Logrado who pocketed $289,500 for his finish.

Charlie “Epiphany77” Carrel was also seen in action and he claimed the SCOOP-16-H ($1,050 PLO8 6-Max) event title for $67,410. “drew.derzh” took down the SCOOP-17-H ($1,050 NL Hold’em) event for $106,785.

German player “KornmeisterX” won the SCOOP-19-H ($1,050 NL Hold’em, Progressive KO, Thursday Thrill SE) for $139,196.65 + collected additional $51,521.89 in bounties. Another big winner of the series came from SCOOP-20-H ($2,100 PLO [Heads-Up]) event, which was won by “TheJds” for $72,600.

Russian player Andrey ”Gigaloff” Zhigalov won the SCOOP-22-H ($1,050 FLO8 [8-Max]) event for $39,802.50 and Robert “pokerguru740” Kuhn won $131,040 for taking down the SCOOP-23-H ($2,100 6-Max, Zoom) event.

Another big winner was “Rino2016192” who won $46,523.55 + $12,810.50 in bounties for taking down SCOOP-24-H ($530 NL Hold’em, 6-Max, Progressive K.O.). Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo claimed the SCOOP-25-H ($2,100 8-Game) title for $95,680.

Ben “Sauce123” Sulsky pocketed a massive $180,000 for winning the SCOOP-26-H ($25,000 Heads-Up, High Roller) event.

UK based Kenny “SpaceyFCB” Hallaert emerged as the champion in the SCOOP-29-H ($1,050 NLHE [8-Max]) event pocketing $147,937.50. Another UK based player Adrian “Amadi_017” Mateos claimed a huge payday of $234,030.07 after shipping the SCOOP-30-H ($2,100 NLHE [6-Max]) event.

The SCOOP-30-M ($215 NLHE [6-Max]) event was won by “Naza114” for $188,890 and “FaNjkEEE” scored $284,918.82 for his first-place finish in SCOOP-31-H ($2,100 NL Hold’em) event.

The series however faced disruptions on May 15 when at 5:00 pm ET an outage began which lasted for a couple of hours. PokerStars’ Severin Rasset apologized to players personally offering compensation. He announced the re-run of events affected on the next Tuesday along with refunding players and also announced that most tournaments including the SCOOP events that got affected were “rolled forward”.

Big Changes at Amaya Inc.; PokerStars India Launch Delayed

PokerStars recently announced strong Q1 reports leading to a 3.20% spike in its stock prices. The gaming giant also announced several big changes starting with the appointment of experienced online gaming executive from William Hill Robin Chhabra as its Chief Corporate Development Officer, renaming the parent brand from Amaya Inc. to The Stars Group Inc. and also relocating its headquarters from Montreal to Toronto.

The company also hinted on a possible delay in the launch of its India variant which was expected to launch early this year.

Robin Chhabra

Read the complete story here.

PokerStars introduced the Player’s Advisory Council during the recently concluded PokerStars Championship Monte Carlo and has appointed Garry Gates as its Player Affairs Consultant.

Garry Gates

Read the complete story here.

888poker XL Inferno

Another major online series running alongside SCOOP is the 888poker XL Inferno series. Few big winners include Russian player “mne_d0edet1” who took down the 840-entry field of XL Inferno #47 – $50,000 8-Max event for $15,540.

Sweden based “bananove” outlasted the 599-player field at the XL Inferno #62 – $100,000 Quarterback event for $20,895.

TheXL Inferno #86 – $88,000 Crazy 8 attracted 409 runners and “JDias99” outshone everyone to collect $16,919 for his first-place finish.

Romania based “PokerMogo” won $44,996 after defeating the 1,738-entry field in the XL Inferno #97 – $200,000 Tune Upevent. The same day saw the conclusion of another event that ran alongside i.e. XL Inferno #94 – $150,000 Mega Deep, which attracted 967 hopefuls to the online felt creating the $193,400 prize pool. After 14 hours of grueling action, Brazilian player “TheSecretVMS” took the top spot for $34,812.

888 Holdings Shares Plunge After News of Ongoing Investigations by UK Gambling Commission

888 Holdings Plc.’s shares took its biggest plunge since June last year with a 7.7% decline in early morning trades on May 15 after the group announced that UK Gambling Commission was conducting investigations in order to review if the company is doing enough to protect its customers.

Read the complete story here.

New York Senate Finance Committee Passes the Online Bill

In another recent development, the online poker bill S3898 was passed within the New York Senate Finance Committee. The bill which was introduced by Senator John Bonacic will now move to the state Senate to be considered as a law and states that poker should be considered a game of skill.

Read the complete story here.

PokerBaazi Premier League Season VI

PokerBaazi’s flagship tournament series i.e. PokerBaazi Premier League concluded its Season VI after five days of adrenaline-pumping action.

Shravan ‘FishStars’ Chhabria claimed the ₹10 Lakhs GTD DeepStack event title for ₹3,51,500 and ‘IamFish007’ won the ₹5 Lakhs GTD DeepStack FreezeOut event for ₹2,14,500.

Read the complete story here.

Pradeep ‘lionroar’ Sharma took down the High-roller event for ₹10,22,625.

The ₹5 Lakhs guaranteed PLO event was won by Vivek ‘Ishoveonyou’ Rughani who pocketed ₹2,54,400 for his finish.

Read the complete story here.

The last day of the series shattered all previous records and the highlight event of the day i.e. ₹50 Lakhs guaranteed Main Event was won by Nishant ‘nishant177’ Sharma for ₹11.95 Lakhs!

Read the complete story here.

Khelo365 Announces ₹1 Crore GTD Tournaments Every Month

The go-to Indian online poker portal, Khelo365 announced an array of tournaments with over ₹1 Crore worth guaranteed prizes every month. Tournament players can rejoice with the 16 exciting daily tournaments and can win an additional ₹1 crore in prizes through the brand-new tournament leaderboard race.

Read the complete story here.

WSOP Main Event Winner to be Crowned in July

In a major change, WSOP announced that the Main Event final table will not be played in November, instead it would conclude in July itself. Poker Central in association with ESPN have agreed to live stream the complete main event action with a 30-minute delay.

Read the complete story here.

Global Poker Index Will Now Include Esports

Keeping in mind the potential of esports, Global Poker Index in a recent press release announced the addition of new features and a new ranking system that will now include stats from the esports industry in addition to poker.

Read the complete story here.

Daniel Daniyar Wins WPT Amsterdam Season XVI Main Event

Daniel Daniyar became the first WPT champion from Kazakhstan after he outlasted the 224-entry field of Season XVI WPT Amsterdam €3,300 Main Event and pocketed €152,600 first place prize along with a $15,000 seat into the season-ending WPT Tournament of Champions.

Daniel Daniyar

Read the complete story here.

Jean-Pascal Savard Wins partypoker MILLIONS North America Main Event

Canada-based Jean-Pascal Savard took down the partypoker MILLIONS North America Main Event hosted at Playground Poker Club in Montreal, Canada for CA$956,050.

Jean-Pascal Savard

Read the complete story here.

Matt Salsberg Wins California State Poker Championship Main Event

Matt Salsberg topped the 1,119 field of the 2017 California State Poker Championship $1,100 Main Event to claim $164,870 in prize money along with a $10,000 worth L.A. Poker Classic seat.

Matt Salsberg

Read the complete story here.

Thijs Menco Takes Down WPTDeepStacks Amsterdam €1,500 Main Event

Netherland based Thijs Menco started the final table with the shortest stack but at the end of game’s play emerged on top in the 243-runner field to claim the WPTDeepStacks Amsterdam €1,500 Main Event title for €73,239.

Thijs Menco

Read the complete story here.

And that is all for this edition of our weekly report. We will return same time next week with all the latest from poker world, so tune in at the same time.

Related Articles:

1. WSOP Alters the Age Old November Nine Concept; 2017 Main Event Winner to be Crowned in July

2. Amaya Inc to be Soon Renamed The Stars Group Inc, Company Posts Strong Q1 Results & Appoints Indian-Origin Robin Chhabra as Chief Corporate Development Officer

3. PokerBaazi Premier League Season VI Concludes With 1003 Entrants on Last Day, Nishant ‘nishant177’ Sharma Takes Down the Main Event for INR 11.95 Lakhs

4. Stand a Chance to Win INR 1 Crore Every Month Only on Khelo365