This Week in Poker: December 31′ 2014 – January 6′ 2015

This Week in Poker
  • Profile picture
  • PG News January 6, 2015
  • 4 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

The mood was set in Dec 2014, when our Indian players had steadfastly decided to accelerate the action and stake their claim at several different tournaments. 2015 is here and going by the past week, the flurry continues unabated.

International live action begins today with the $100,000 Super High Roller event at the 2015 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure rolling out at Atlantis on Paradise Island. The entire bevy of eminent poker pros, including Daniel Negreanu, Jason Mercier, Vanessa Selbst, and WCOOP champion Fedor Holz will be attending. The tournament features 35 events including the $10,000 PCA Main Event and a new Double Bubble event that pays half the field. Our online railbirds will be interested to note that more than 330 players qualified for the Main event through virtual satellites.

Flying eastwards towards the orient, Macau will be the next landing for the action, come Feb 27, the scrambling for qualifying seats through satellites starts today for as low as HK $22.

International arena aside, the action will also roll out domestically, with IPC scheduled for later this month at the Deltin Royale. This will be followed by the newly announced Tilt Poker Series “Sequel” in Feb. You can read all about it in our weekly recap.

You can also read about Aditya Agarwal doing India proud by becoming the first Indian PokerStars brand ambassador. Aditya will henceforth play under the online alias “Adi Agarwal” on PokerStars.

There are two other developments and both relate to Goa; first – Anil Gulati leaves the Pride, after a short association. In the second, Goa casino operators got a reprieve when new CM Laxmikant Parsekar refuted the closure of casinos.

In other news, it looks like the upheavals of 2014 are spilling over into 2015 with yet another split, this time Shane Warne parting ways with 888poker.

Scroll down to catch all the news in detail…

 

Online Railbird Report

It has been one big party and players can now look forward to two major series. The MiniFTOPS had a great opening on last Sunday, though the big daddy, Turbo Championship of Online Poker (TCOOP) is yet to begin on Jan 22!

This 11-day extravaganza promises a guaranteed prize pool of $15 million spread over 50 different events. Now in its 3rd year, TCOOP provides an amazing number of fast-structured tournaments, with a varied range of buy-in’s, attracting both, professional and recreational players. The winner of the $700 buy-in Main Event $2 M GTD can look forward to claiming at least $300,000. This event is slated for Feb. 2 at 02:00 IST. This year a special Player of the Series Leaderboard will award the winner a ticket worth $10,300 to the 2015 SCOOP Main Event. In fact, the top 100 players will all receive prizes.

In the meanwhile, MiniFTOPS kicked off on Sunday Jan 4. The series will feature the HORSE, Razz and 6-Card Omaha and Stud H/L games, which are back due to popular demand. The $75 Re-Entry Main Event is scheduled for Monday, Jan 19 at 00:00 IST and has a guaranteed prize pool of $400,000.

Players have been busy at the virtual felts this past week and our ‘PokerGuru Star of the Week‘ is Young Gun Karan ‘Don Radia’ Radia, who made a total of $17,747 this week, with three notable scores.

Karan Radia
Karan Radia

Close on Karan’s heels, is Young Gun Amit ‘bblacklegend’ Jain with total cashes of $15,091. Besides these, Arsh ‘BigggTymeR’ Grover made a first place finish in PokerStars The Big $11, $130K GTD for $13,700. Rohit Madhur too began 2015 with a bang, by taking down ‘The Big $22, $50K GTD’ on PokerStars for $13,218!

Other significant scorers this week were Aditya ‘donkab0mber’ Sushant, Sanjay Taneja and Akash ‘buddhaluv’ Sanghvi.

The first Sunday Million of 2015 once again saw Indian players making deep runs. Rohit ‘buzzzbeee85’ Mariwalla finished 87th for $1,675, Shashank ‘felter1989’ Jain made $791 for 172nd place and Arvindhan ’tiltalert86′ LakshmiNarayanan made the best finish with 56th place for $2,306 !

Notable Scores of the Week-

Karan ‘Don Radia’ Radia won a total of $17,747 this week. His scores are as follows:

1. won $4,674.90 for 1st place in the PokerStars ‘$3.30 Saturday Micro, $25K GTD’.

2. won $2,600.62 for 2nd place in the PokerStars ‘$55 Saturday PL Omaha, $15K GTD’.

3. won $10,473.30 for 1st place in the PokerStars ‘The Hot $16.50 [Turbo], $50K GTD’.

Amit ‘bblacklegend’ Jain won $3,182.00 for 1st place in the PokerStars ‘$109 NL Hold’em [Turbo], $10K GTD’ and $11,909.95 for 3rd place in the PokerStars ‘The Big $109, $100K GTD’.

Arsh ‘BigggTymeR’ Grover won $13,700 for 1st place finish in the PokerStars ‘The Big $11, $130K GTD’.

Rohit Madhur wins $13,218 for 1st place finish in the PokerStars ‘The Big $22, $50K GTD’.

Sanjay Taneja won $4,957.25 for 6th place in the PokerStars ‘The Big $109, $100K GTD’ and won $6,367.50 for 2nd place in the PokerStars ‘The Big $162, $35K GTD’.

– ‘skillhack’ won $2,560.00 for 1st place in the Full Tilt The Benjamin, $1,311.09 for 2nd place in the PokerStars ‘$16.50 NL Hold’em [Turbo], $8K GTD’ and $5,561.27 for 1st place in the PokerStars ‘The Hot $75 [Turbo], $20K GTD’.

Aditya ‘ donkab0mber’ Sushant won $9,346.50 for 2nd place in the PokerStars ‘$320 Wednesday Fifty Grand, $50K GTD’.

Arjun ‘4better’ Pasricha won $6,103.24 for 1st place in the PokerStars ‘$52.50 NL Hold’em [Hyper-Turbo], $12K GTD’.

Akash ‘Buddhaluv’ Sanghvi won $4,450.50 for 1st place in the PokerStars ‘$109 NL Hold’em [Turbo], $16K GTD’.

Arvindhan ’tiltalert86′ LakshmiNarayanan won $2,306 for 56th place finish in the PokerStars Sunday Million.

Sharad ‘kennyle’ Rao won $1,194.75 for 6th place in the PokerStars ‘The Big $22, $25K GTD’.

– ‘desid90’ won $1,541.43 for 2nd place in the PokerStars $27 NL Hold’em [6-Max, Progressive Super-Knockout], $10K GTD’.

Armaan ‘armaan07’ Kochhar won $1,700.00 for 2nd place in the PokerStars $109 NL Hold’em [Turbo], $10K GTD’.

Rohit ‘buzzzbeee85’ Mariwalla won $1,675.08 for 87th place in the PokerStars ‘$215 Sunday Million, $1M GTD’.

 

Aditya Agarwal is India`s First Team PokerStars Pro

India finally is being represented on PokerStars and not surprisingly, Aditya Agarwal is the chosen brand ambassador.

Team PokerStars Pro Aditya Agarwal
Team PokerStars Pro Aditya Agarwal

Aditya has been selected on the basis of his long and illustrious poker resume, with a number of finishes at PokerStars tournaments. Starting his poker career while studying in USA, Aditya soon became a professional player and is a regular participant at several global tournaments. He is one of the few players, who has balanced both live and online tournaments successfully. Aditya is also known for recognizing and mentoring some great talent, who have already carved a path of their own. His exploits in 2014 alone are a long list of impressive scores. For those used to following Aditya by his PokerStars moniker “Intervntion”, henceforth you will be able to catch him online under his new alias “Adi Agarwal.

Read all about this new development, which will find Aditya attending the upcoming Aussie Millions as a PokerStars Team Pro.

 

Tilt Poker Series Announces “Sequel”

After a successful inaugural tournament, Tilt Poker Series has confidently announced its next offering. The organizers have come up with an innovative “movie” theme based sequel, which will feature events, such as Dark Knight, Batman Begins, Bounty Hunter and an ₹25K Gladiator Main event. The series is scheduled to run from Feb 11 to 16 at the Rockets Poker Room, Bangalore.

In a typical “twist”, the organizers have done away with guarantees this time around. They feel that Tilt has created a platform that is strong enough to attract players, considering that all guarantees were overreached last time.

 

Anil Gulati And Casino Pride End Collaboration

In a short-lived partnership, Anil Gulati separated from Casino Pride and Madhav ‘Maddy’ Gupta. Gulati had joined Pride, after the takeover of the Deltin Royale Poker Room by Amin Rozani, Sameer Rattonsey and Rajeev Kanjani of IPC.

Without any specifics, Gulati and his team left Pride and are said to be currently seeking other options in Sri Lanka and Goa.

Read the complete story here.

 

Goa Casinos Get Relief

After a long time, Goa casino operators breathed a sigh of relief, when the newly inducted CM Laxmikant Parsekar spoke a different line of thought a few days ago. Speaking in contrast to the usual anti-casino stand displayed by earlier CM Manohar Parrikar and others, Parsekar said he did not foresee the closure of casinos any time soon, as these brought in valuable revenue. He also admitted the possibility of licenses being renewed.

Casino operators have welcomed the news and felt that it gave stability to the industry.

 

Shane Warne Parts Ways With 888 Poker After 7 Year Collaboration

Shane Warne recently announced that he and 888poker are parting ways after a collaboration of 7 years. With this parting, it seems as if the upheavals of 2014 are spilling over into 2015.

The past many months saw several poker pros and companies breaking ties or dropping contracts, for a number of reasons. Marvin Rettenmaier, JC Tran, Jason Somerville, Joe Cada, Gus Hansen, Viktor Blom, “Nacho” Barbero, Humberto Brenes and the complete Ultimate Poker (RIP) team went separate ways from companies such as PokerStars and 888poker. Victoria Coren-Mitchell quit over the casino games offering by PokerStars and Kara Scott gave no specific reason for her split with Partypoker.

Warne made the parting announcement on twitter and said, “Sydney today for the test match, then Aussie Millions poker -exciting. FYI I’ve parted ways with 888…

Warne has been with the site since 2008 and travelled across Las Vegas for WSOP, Europe and Australia representing them as the “captain” of Team 888poker for various events. The legendary cricketer has not specified any particular reason for the split.

Warne mentioned a new partnership deal to be announced shortly, hinting that he is not done with poker as yet. He states that he will still be participating in the 2015 Aussie Millions, so perhaps the new collaboration may be known then.

That’s all for this first week of 2015, we have another 51 left, so stay logged in and catch it all, right here on PokerGuru.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Top Online Poker Rooms

Top
PokerGuru