This Week in Poker: December 17 – 23

This Week in Poker
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  • PG News December 23, 2014
  • 6 Minutes 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

If week before last seemed fast paced, the action this past week accelerated further, with excited poker players simply lapping it up. There was something for everyone, with several different live and online tournaments rolling out. The newly collaborated Tilt Poker Series, made its debut and Bangalore saw a frenzy of players thronging the Rockets Poker Room. There were new winners and pros both, you can check out who won what right here.

While Bangalore seems to be poker booming, unfortunately, Kolkata lost its only poker room Amator and at Goa, the Chances Casino was raided by the CID.

In international tournaments, we bring you reports from the live events at Los Angeles, where the WSOP Circuit crowned a new champion in Mukul Pahuja. This week also hosted the WPT at Atlantic City and we bring you the highlights of the tournament, besides the news of WPT tying up with Chinese Ourgame, to expand its presence in Asia.

Beyond the US, live tournaments graced European shores and we detail the action with different events at the EPT Season 11 Prague, as well as the first APT Prague and its winner.

No, we have have not forgotten about online action and as usual, Amaya is at it again with a cut in rewards at Full Tilt.

It was a rocking week for India`s online champions with Armaan ‘armaan007’ Kochhar and Amit ‘bblacklegend’ Jain making merry at the just concluded Double Vision Sunday. Catch their scores, as well as the impressive figures notched up by several Indian players at the online felts in our weekly wrap-up.

 

Online Railbird Report

It has been a monumental Sunday, what with the year-end festivities and online poker portals outdoing each other with special promos and gargantuan prizes!

PokerStars December Festival will end with the year, but not before the excitement on Dec 28, with the $5 Million GTD Sunday Million.

Double Vision Sunday this weekend had 2 Indian pros busy making the most of the packed schedule. Armaan ‘Armaan007’ Kochhar has been on a juggernaut online spree the past many months and he made the final table at the 6-Max Sunday Million, eventually making it to 4th for $70,816.48! After just 1 week of hiatus, Armaan is back as the ‘PokerGuru Star of the Week‘!

Young Gun Amit ‘bblacklegend’ Jain was another who finished 22nd in the 9-Max Sunday Million for $3,880. Young Gun Danish ‘danish7’ Shaikh too notched up a neat score in the ‘Bigger $109, $200K GTD’ on PokerStars, where he finished 12th for $2,081!

Many other Indians have also; put this festive online week to good use.

Akash ‘buddhaluv’ Sanghvi made $1,929.16 for 1st place in the PokerStars $82 NL Hold’em [6-Max, Hyper-Turbo], $6K Gtd and Sabyasachi ‘infusion_Leo’ Chakraborty also scored 1st place in the 888poker The $6,000 Cyclone raking in $2,032.80

Rohit ‘buzzzbeee85’ Mariwalla pocketed $2,840.50, while Phalgun ‘phalgun27’ Kumar, Pranay ‘mitarachi89’ Kapoor and Raahil ‘rbhatia3’ Bhatia all made smart sums online.

Though the PokerStars December Festival ends, the fun continues into the New Year with 888poker’s scintillating “Gift Showers” promo, which began on Dec 2 and will go on until Feb 15, 2015. Players can look forward to some amazing prizes, such as iPhone 6 smartphones, Playstation 4 consoles, Go Pro Hero 4 cameras, Sony noise cancelling headphones, tournament tickets, as well as cash prizes worth a whopping $1,000,000!

Notable Scores this Week-

Armaan ‘armaan007’ Kochhar won $70,816.48 for 4th place in the PokerStars $215 Sunday Million, $1M Gtd, Double Vision.

Amit ‘bblacklegend’ Jain won won $3,880.00 for 22nd place in the PokerStars ‘$215 Sunday Million II, [6-Max], $1M GTD’, Double Vision and $3,174.00 for 1st place in the PokerStars ‘$109 NL Hold’em [Turbo, Re-Entry], $10K GTD”.

Rohit ‘buzzzbeee85’ Mariwalla won $2,840.50 for 10th place in the PokerStars ‘$1,050 Thursday Thrill [Progressive Super-Knockout], $300K GTD’.

Raahil ‘rbhatia’ Bhatia won $1,440.00 for 1st place in the PokerStars ‘$102.25 NL Hold’em [Heads-Up, Hyper-Turbo, Knockout], $4K GYD’ and $1,389.90 for 3rd place in the PokerStars ‘$52.50 NL Hold’em [Hyper-Turbo], $12K GTD’.

Chintan ‘chintudotcom’ Naik finished 4th for $2,689.50 in PokerStars $109 NL Hold’em (Turbo, Re-Entry), $20K GTD’.

Danish ‘danish7’ Shaikh won $2,081 for 12th place finish in the PokerStars Bigger $109, $200K GTD’.

‘aob1986’ won $2,569.32 for 2nd place in the PokerStars ‘The Big $16.50, $12.5K GTD’.

Sabyasachi ‘Infusion_Leo’ Chakraborty won $2,032.80 for 1st place in the 888poker The $6,000 Cyclone.

Akash ‘Buddhaluv’ Sanghvi won $1,929.16 for 1st place in the PokerStars ‘$82 NL Hold’em [6-Max, Hyper-Turbo], $6K GTD’.

Pranay ‘mitrachi89’ Kapoor won $1,478.75 for 2nd place in the PokerStars $13.75 NL Hold’em.

Phalgun ‘Phalgun27’ Korikana won $1,362.52 for 1st place in the PokerStars ‘$55 NL Hold’em [Turbo], $5K GTD’.

Shyam ‘shyam9000’ Shahani won $1,002.75 for 3rd place in the PokerStars ‘$27.50 NL Hold’em [Turbo], $7.5K GTD’.

 

Tilt Poker Series Makes a Successful Debut at Rockets Poker Room, Bangalore

Bangalore is buzzing and Sangeeth ‘Samoh’ Mohan and Rajeev Raut collaborated Tilt Poker Series has definitely added to the fun. The series made a successful debut on Dec 17, with a number of events running to a packed house.

The inaugural ₹3K Freezeout event drew 68 entries, over double the guaranteed 30. Lokesh Thakkar grabbed his first ever title, after beating Kalyan Chakravarthy in a heads up play. Shyam Veerabhadra finished at 3rd place.

Lokesh Thakkar
Lokesh Thakkar
Pavan Srinivasan
Pavan Srinivasan

On Day 2, Pavan Srinivasan emerged winner at the ₹5K Rebuy event, which saw 51 players attending. Young Gun Aditya Sushant was runner up.

The ₹10K Freezeout Event on Day 3 saw 62 players attending, with many notables participating. Only top 6 players made the money and it was Young Gun Sahil ‘antilog’ Agarwal, who won his first major live tournament by taking down the event. Prasanna Jayappa and Naveen Pilot finished 2nd and 3rd respectively.

Sahil Agarwal
Sahil Agarwal

The 2-day ₹30K Main Event managed to come up with the required 50 players and Faridabad based Rajat Sharma claimed his first title, after beating Archit Khandewal in the heads-up match. Prasanna finished at 3rd place.

Rajeev Raut giving the championship trophy to Rajat Sharma
Rajeev Raut giving the championship trophy to Rajat Sharma

While, the Main event played out to a finish, another side event, the Adda52 5K Bounty event received 54 entries and Krishna SM of Bangalore emerged the winner.

On Monday, Dec 22, the Tilt Poker Series concluded with its India-first offering of a Dealers Only event, which was taken down by Narendra Bam.

Read the complete story here.

 

In Countrywide News, Amator Kolkata Shuts Shop and Chances Casino Goa Gets Raided

Amator Poker Room, Kolkata’s first legally run poker room officially announced its closure this week. Vipin Choudhary, a lawyer, along with Diddy Thacker and Shashwat Agarwal had launched the room last Oct and had even conducted tournaments. The poker room closed, with the organizers citing problems in running it. Definitely, a loss for poker players in Kolkata!

Across the country, down south in Goa, the Chances Casino was raided by the CID on Dec 15. The CID acted on instructions from the Home Department, which stated that the casino was conducting “live gaming” without appropriate licenses. The said poker room has since been sealed off and the management has been booked.

 

WSOP Harrah`s Circuit – Mukul Pahuja Clinches Title!

Mukul Pahuja is set to have a grand celebration this New Year, after winning the WSOP Circuit $1,675 Main Event at Harrah’s Atlantic City. Mukul has had a fantastic year and with this win, he adds $148,345 to his kitty. 460-players had created a prize pool of $690,000 and Mukul took an aggressive stance on Day 3, finally beating Jake Toole to grab the championship.

Mukul Pahuja
Mukul Pahuja

Read the complete story here.

 

WPT – Events, Winners And Tie-Up With Chinese Ourgame

World Poker Tour (WPT) has entered into an alliance with Ourgame International Holdings Limited, a China based company, with presence across Bhutan, Cambodia, Hongkong, Indonesia, Laos, Korea, Nepal, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, Phillipines, Vietnam and Japan. The move seeks to increase WPT presence in Asia.

Meanwhile on Dec 17, at $25,000 High Roller event held at the Aria Resort in Las Vegas, Pratyush Buddiga, took down the title, winning $543,683 in prize money. Pratyush beat Larry Wright and a total field of 59 entries to claim his 2nd win this year.

Pratyush Buddiga
Pratyush Buddiga

On Dec 22, another of PokerGuru featured Asian-origin pros; Mohsin ‘chicagocards1’ Charania clinched the championship at the World Poker Tour Five Diamond World Poker Classic Main Event. Mohsin claimed $1,477,890 as the winner’s share, in a 6-day event, after wading through a player pool of 449 entries.

The same day, respected online pro Andrew “Lucky Chewy” Lichtenberger, overcame several notables in poker world to take the title at the WPT Alpha8 Las Vegas $100,000 buy-in event. 55 players shelled out the huge amount to create a prize pool of $5,395,500.

Andrew Lichtenberger
Andrew Lichtenberger

Lichtenberger took home the lion’s share of $2,104,245.

Read the complete story here.

 

EPT Season 11 Prague

The 2014 PokerStars.com EPT Season 11 €5,300 Main Event held at Hilton Prague Hotel witnessed an amazing 1,107 entries, expanding the prize pool to €5,535,000.

26-year old American Stephen Graner was the victor and doubled his life earnings, when he enriched his wallet with €969,000, along with the trophy. Sweden’s Anton Bertilsson finished at 2nd place, taking home €582,720.

Stephen Graner
Stephen Graner

At the same tournament, Russian Andrey Zaichenko battled 309 players and won the High Roller, taking the title and €487,180 in prize money. Laurynas Levinskas made €412,910 for a 2nd place finish.

 

APT Debuts At Prague With 3-Day Series

Poland`s Pawel Zawadowicz will mark the history books for winning the inaugural APT Asian Poker Series Prague Euro 1,100 Main Event at the King’s Casino in the Corinthia Hotel, Czech Republic. The winning prize was a little over Euro 10,000.

Pawel Zawadowicz
Pawel Zawadowicz

The only players having attended ATP before were APT Player of the Year Sam Razavi, Charlie Wittmann of Germany and Iori Yogo of Japan.

In two side events, Japan`s Iori Yogo clinched the Euro 330 No Limit Hold`em 1 Event and Switzerland`s Hacki Gerrard won the Euro 110 Deep Stack Turbo Event.

Read the complete story here.

 

Amaya Continues Cost-Cutting – Full Tilt Cuts Rewards

Ever since taking over, Amaya has initiated a series of claimed “cost-cutting” measures, which have not gone down too well with players. After, several such rake increases and foreign levies at PokerStars, now Full Tilt has announced a cut in the reward points per dollar raked.

Now, Full Tilt will reward players with only 8 points, as against the 10 points per dollar raked earlier.

Full Tilt has made these changes after a 15% Point of Consumption (POC) tax on profits generated by players in the UK, was passed by the government. In Sept, the site had stated that there would be no reductions in VIP benefits, but has passed on this expense to players.

Black card members have also faced cuts and naturally, poker players are thoroughly upset with this new development.

Read the complete story here.

That wraps up this hectic week, folks. As usual, we will be back next week, same time, so stay logged on for all the news from poker world.

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