Sangeeth Mohan

#back2basics – Health? What’s that bro?

August 30, 2016 in News

In my recent trip to Goa I caught up with a very dear friend and who I consider one of the best cash game players in India . During our conversation about poker and health and other fun stuff we came to the conclusion that if we take poker out of our lives our lifespan would increase by at-least 10 years.

Now poker has given a lot of us a new life, a better life or just something to dream about (winning a bracelet, main event, whatever) but what is the cost we are paying in order to achieve all this?

I have been a BIG guy all my life, so people don’t notice my weight gain that quickly. Round to rounder isn’t such a huge difference. But I have seen and noticed my dear friends from the circuit go from Concave to Convex in a matter of a couple of years.

We as a community are the most rationally thinking people out there. Rational thinking is our job. We know that the lifestyle is extremely unhealthy, still we don’t give a damn about what it does to us or our health.

Let me give you my example. I have tried pretty much every diet out there. I have tried to worked out and I just gave up. Its not because it wasn’t working I did lose a lil bit of weight, but I was just freaking lazy. Nothing else. Just lazy.

We watch every Galfond video out there, still skip the one in which he talks about health and how beneficial it is to play optimally. I remember a blog from a dear friend and one of the top tourney regs in India about how he wasn’t able to focus after the 13 hr mark because he started getting back aches and just fatigued. During my APPT run in Macau back in 2011, day 3 ended after almost 16 hours of play. But I dint feel tired and I could just keep going. I don’t know if I will be able to do that again today.

In all these years of being a pro what I have realized is that keeping and staying fit is the most +EV poker decision you can ever make as a pro. It just keeps you better motivated to perform. I am starting a program to help me with keeping fit (not losing weight) and want to go ahead from there.

We have taken those beats thinking I will win in the long run. The least you can do is to be alive to see the long run. Else, Pan chewing uncle – 1. You – 0.

IOPC and other good stuff

July 19, 2016 in News

Hey Folks,

Its been a while since I blogged. I have been on a sabbatical of sorts for a month or so. Not from Poker but playing. I have been spending a lot of time studying and just trying to get better. I have also been keenly following our boys in Vegas. Big shout out my boys Sushi and Bblack for their deep run the series. What sickos.

As most of you might already know IOPC is back on Spartan Poker and I couldn’t be happier with the structure and events. There is High Roller and a Super High Roller. How sick is that? For everyone who is interested in shot taking, there are satellites happening for the Main as well as the High Roller events on a daily basis on Spartan.

India has its own version of Spin n Go’s now. Yes. Windfall. Do check it out as the pay outs are pretty sick.

Thats all for now , Good luck and see you at the tables.

#Backtobasics – Getting Started- Thought Process

August 21, 2016 in News

Hey Folks,

Its been a while since I blogged and have been thinking about starting a blog series which can help a lot of beginners. So, back to basics is a series which will focus on helping the up an coming players with the nuances of poker.

My biggest question when I started this game and saw many great players play was, whats going on in their head and how exactly are they thinking in a particular situation.
Poker as a game has too many variables and its pretty much to impossible to know what is the correct thing to do in a given situation unless you think about it in the correct way.

For example, in the 2 hands I have posted in a facebook group for feedback there were many different answers, thought processes and solutions to the given situation. If u closely watch the comments you will notice that many good players had different opinions.

Is it because one player is better than the other? No. Its about weightage. How much weightage would you give to a particular information to come to a conclusion.

In a particular hand (100-200) when I had QQ pre flop 35bb effective (70bb stack but was a straddled pot), an extremely tight player opens pre to 2100 for the first time (he has been limp calling/folding his entire range irrespective of position for the 50 dd hands I have played with him/her). My question was would I go with this hand irrespective coz ” we have queens yo” or just fold.

How I thought about it : Extremely tight passive. I would expect this player to have pretty much ZERO bluffs in his range. He is definitely getting it in irrespective.
When you talk about tight players, one thing which I have noticed in my experience is that people consider AK, AQ to be drawing hands and are scared to go even HU with those hands. The primary reason is because they dont know what to do if they miss the flop. So they tend to open larger than usual with those hands.
With this in mind I do not think we are in great shape against against his range (Flipping at best) and decide to fold coz we will get much better spots with far more equity in the future and we dont need to take this high variance spot now.

In this situation I gave a lot more weightage to the type of player than anything else. If you read about the hand in the forum you will see the different possible outcomes people came up with.

Always remember that no one is wrong. Its all about how much weightage you give to a particular information you have.

Thats all for this one.

Good luck at the tables.

IOPC and Other Good Stuff

January 23, 2016 in News

Hey Folks,

Its been a while since I blogged. I hope everyone is having a great new year and still at it with your new year resolution.

Just wanted to let you guys know (I am pretty sure most of you already know) that the last two days of IOPC is here and this edition the numbers have been off the hook. Its such a great feeling to see the numbers rise with every edition just like the IPC. Great growth imo. Just in case you guys are wondering the IPC satellites are around the corner too.

The Samoh’s daily tournament on Spartan has been doing good too and we have a bunch of people who have qualified for a free skype session with me.

Just in case you dint know how to get the free coaching, if you have won the tournament on a particular day, at the end of that week, you will receive a mail from me with instructions and we set up the call. In case you haven’t received the mail or have any questions, please drop me a message on FB and I can sort it out for you.

You will also be part of a study group on skype where you can ask me questions even after the session or whenever you are in doubt about a hand. I will add a few sickos in there too so that you guy get a great deal of knowledge from them.

That’s all for now.

Good luck.

The Ability to Counter Inability.

April 2, 2016 in News

Poker is a skill game and it can technically be taught to anyone. Yes, you take a lifetime to master and all that jazz still exists. But what is Poker Greatness.

According to me poker has a lot more to do with knowledge of tendencies than anything else. We can identify villain tendencies, make a note of it, come to logical conclusion on what to do with that information. (Very often its as easy as, Ok, when he sizes this it’s the nuts and I should fold). However many people fail at this stage.

The inability to act on information after clearly knowing what the right thing to do is what stops you from taking the next step. Unfortunately, this incapability mostly comes out during downswings which will make a player feel that its coz he aint catching cards.. But its not true. Yes, you are losing a sizeable portion of your roll to a downswing but if u go back and check your hand history you would know that bad calls or shoves cost you much more than the bad run.

Now let’s just break this issue down to see what we can do to change it.
Why are you in this spot more often than you like?
Why are you incapable of doing what’s logical?
The answer to both these question will be more or less the same, depends on which way you look at it.
You are in a spot where you see yourself making decisions which defy logic is because :
1. You are extremely irritated/pissed at someone.
2. You are tired
3. You are stressed
4. You want to get even.
5. You want to win back the money I lost immediately
6. Money makes you emotionally involved.
7. You can’t differentiate between chips on a poker table and money.

To come out of this situation, the first question you need to ask yourself is “Do I have enough money to be playing emotion free poker”. Emotion free is the key here.

Let me give you a real life example. I started my career off as a tournament pro and then ventured into cash games. I had difficulty in adjusting to cash than a lot of other players because in tournaments the chips don’t have value and in cash games that’s not the case. It took me time but then it did happen eventually.
What helped me was moving down stakes. I used to play all high buy in tournaments and naturally started off playing bigger cash games which was a mistake. I wasn’t comfortable losing 50k in a pot.
But when I moved down stakes, pots were much smaller; I was a lot more comfortable with the stakes. I was able to neglect loses or tilt and I was playing my A game all the time. Eg: I was still able to fold KJdd from the sb to an EP raise.

For everyone playing online, my first piece of advice is to move down limits. If 20-50 or 50-100 isn’t working for you don’t shy away from playing 10-20 and building confidence. Remember, if you are doing BRM right, you don’t need to earn from poker to pay your rent next month. You can easily be stuck for a few months and not worry about it.

The importance of taking breaks is under estimated in poker. A lot of books say that “If you say that you are taking a break when you are running bad, you are doing something wrong”. No you are not. Decision making is what this game is about. If you cant make correct decisions you NEED A BREAK. Yes, making the right play over and over again will definitely profit you in the long run. However, I am taking about ability. If downswings affect your ability to make that right decision, TAKE A BREAK.

May the Flop be with you.

Cheers.

Thank you LORD!

March 4, 2016 in News

And we BINK. Exactly 5 years ago in Feb’11 when I first went to Goa for a live tournament it was the IPC which gave me the platform to get spotted and picked by the PokerGuru team. Fast forwards 5 years and here we are. It took me 5 years to win an IPC trophy. I came painfully close a few times but I am really happy and extremely thankful to God that I finally have the monkey off my back.

This IPC as always was huge and I got off to great starts in all the events I played. I started the 10k kick off on a very soft table and chipped up very quick. Before even boarding flight to Goa, I had decided to play the game Adi taught me back in 2011. I knew exactly what to do with stack sizes and ranges. I decided to go with it coz I was playing a very fundamentally strong pre-flop game which was the key in structures like these. After the first 4-5 levels you pretty much don’t have an opportunity to play post flop. In the 10k Kick off, I busted 14th or 13th when I reshoved 13bigs with 88’s into Sahil’s TT when he opened Cut off. In the Bounty event, I micro bubbled when I lost AK to AK but ended up with 7 bounties.

My First table of the 60k High roller was a joke. I had Clawin, Zarvan, Apoorv Goel, Shravan Chhabria, Sharad Rao, and Paawan Bansal with me. We were on Table 10 which broke only for the Final Table (Because of table placement). We knew we had to play with each other at least for another 10 hrs till we re-draw for day 2.

I started the day off with a Cold 4 bet. Paawan opened button, and Sharad (as usual) 3 bets and there we go. Our first perfect Cold 4-bet spot and hand. The beautiful 57ss. I cold 4 bet and Sharad calls. I c-bet QJ5cc, he calls. Turn comes 5d. I bet again he calls. River is Td. I made a sizing error on this street for sure. I bet a little too big. He said he wasn’t gonna call any bet, however, I still feel it is my job to size to right every time
After this, thanks to a very tough table, it was always small pots here and there. Nothing major or worth mentioning. We opened a bunch and C-bet took down a few pots, 3 bet a few etc etc.
I ended day 1 with 50k ish which was at the bottom half of the pack.
Day 2 I started on a slightly better table. Kanishk Bansal, Antilog, Sumit Asrani were the few I knew from before. I think the reason I won this tournament is because of the way I played my stack on this table. I think I played my stack which was between 10 and 20 bbs almost to near perfection.
Couple of hands I remember, I shoved 10BB from the button with Q9ss and Antilog tank calls with K8o and we bink to double. Sick call by him.
I remember being the shortest on the bubble and chipped up during the bubble. The final table bubble burst when a short stack opened and I ripped AKo, got called by AQ and held.

The final table was a mixed bag. Sushi the monster stack was 2 seats to my left, after him was Sapra and Sumit Asrani was very short. I had 224k at 5k-12k and I was may be 3rd in chips.

The first hand I played on the FT was when I reshoved 18bb with AKss to a mid position open and he folded. On my next BB, the same player limps mid position and I check my option with 77. I spoke to a few players who said I should probably be shoving 20bb to this limp. However, I had too little information about this player at that point in time. Anyways, the flop comes a magic A73r. We check call a 25k bet. Turn was 4s . Putting a Backdoor spade draw out there. We check and the villain Overbet shoves like 260k and we snap. He had A8o and drawing dead.

This was a crucial double and paved my way to top 4 with ease. 4 handed play took a long time as Sushi lost the chiplead in between and there were chips flying around. Finally, Mayank shoved from the SB with K6hh and we wake with good’ol Aces in the BB and hold. 3 Handed play lasted under a level and I got it in with AK against Riyaz’s AQ and we hold to set up the HU play. I had a slight Chip lead and we made a deal with 1.6L and the trophy to play for.

Heads up , although deepish dint last long. I remember Roshan the tournament director asking us if we were playing poker or table tennis. We switched chip lead almost every hand. Here are a few imp hands.
Hand 1. Sushi opens and we call Q6cc. We check call A43cc. We check call Qs Turn. We check call Qh river (He bet BIG) and lost to Q7.
Hand 2. Sushi opens we call 56dd. We Check call 5J2ss. We check call 9c turn. We check fold to a shove on the 2d river.
Hand 3: We open K8ss. We bet on 854dd, Suchi calls. We chck back on 5s Turn. We call sushis bet on 2c river and we were good.
Hand 4: Sushi opens and we 3 bet with AA. Sushi calls. Flop J89r. We check. Sushi bets, we shove, he calls and hold against JTo.
I am not mentioning the sizing because I dont remember it exactly and PokerGuru has a detailed coverage with it anyways.
This was the final hand and bink bink. IPC 60k Highroller. Check.
I want to thank a few people in this blog.
First up, Adi Agarwal and Rohit Bhalla. Adi for teaching me this game and giving me the confidence. Bhalla for the great support and confidence he showed in me through out the event. I would also like to thank everyone who supported me in the poker room, the Spartan Staff, The IPC staff, The Media Crew and everyone who made this very very special for me.

A special mention to my dear friend and brother Aditya Sushant. The level of grace and maturity which he exhibits is highly commendable and I would urge all up and coming players to learn from him. As I always say, he is the best in the country after Adi.

Also a quick announcement about the PGOL series. We have decided to postpone the PGOL series considering the player feedback we received during IPC.

Also, March Madness – Anniversary Celebrations are on on Spartan Poker and someone’s going to Vegas. Log in and check out the promo for yourself.

May the Flop be with you.
Samoh.

This is Sparta.

September 28, 2015 in News

Its been a while since I blogged. The last one year has been very active on the personal front with me getting married and shifting base to Kochi. I have mostly been on the organization front of Poker. Having organized half a dozen or so Poker tournaments in Bangalore .It has been an eye opener for me when it comes to Poker in India. Poker is just as fascinating a game to me even when I am not three betting or making crazy calls, but breaking tables instead.

Poker in India has grown exponentially from when I started playing about 5 years ago. The tournaments have increased in frequency and we witnessed the highest footfall in any Indian Poker Tournament in the recently concluded IPC August’15. Also there are a number of online Poker sites that offer state of the art player experience. Spartan being one of the latest entrants. Speaking of Spartan Poker, it is the coming together of the biggest Poker conglomerates in India, namely IPC and PokerGuru. I started my career with PokerGuru. In a way PokerGuru is my alma mater.

IPC and PG back in the day were the two biggest names in the Poker industry, each with its own tournament brand. They were the early birds and good at what they did so the competition was pretty hard core. One can even call it a cold war of sorts. This was back in 2011-12, fast forward to 2015 we have 2 of the most revered Poker banners coming together to revolutionize Poker in India. Which is a very smart thing to do. Why compete and have collateral damage, when you can join forces and actually change the face of Poker in India. The inception of Spartan Poker is a huge milestone in the history of Indian Poker industry.

And it gives me great pride to be chosen as the first Spartan Pro and to represent them is an honour. I began my Poker career under the tutelage of Aditya “Intervention” Agarwal. And went on to becoming a PokerGuru pro. Those days were life changing for me both professionally and personally. Anyone who has interacted with Intervention knows what exactly I am talking about. Every person in their life reaches a turning point which changes everything for him. And being a PG pro was exactly that for me.

Spartan Poker has a great team, high spirits, and the best interest of the game in mind. . See you all at the felts, both virtual and real!!!

A New Beginning

December 31, 2015 in News

2015 has been a great year for me. Personally and Professionally. I got married to a wonderful person, I got sponsored by the best poker site in the country and I made a bunch of new friends.

Even before I start writing, “Thank you lord for a great year”.

This year has been full of learning, unlearning and re-learning. I think I have finally figured how to not fall asleep listening to Galfond’s monotonous tone. The purpose of this blog was to say a year end goodbye and to address another issue which was out there.

There was a lot of talk about TDS recently on the social media and thats the reason I will start with that.

I remember a couple of years ago a representative from an online site in India messaged me on facebook and asked me to give the site a try. I said sure and I was informed that there will be a 30% TDS cut from my winning on that site.
I understand TDS and I know I need to pay my taxes which I do. However, as a professional poker player a direct cut from your winnings cuts down your profitability hugely. No matter what edge you have if u take 30% in TDS and another 4 or 5% in rake, you can pretty much say goodbye to your professional poker dreams.

When I got the sponsorship deal from Spartan, the first question I asked was, what about TDS on winnings? They said ” We will pay it for you”. I said ” Oh thank you, perks of being a pro huh?”. They replied ” Nope. we pay it for everyone”.

This one reply was good enough for me to start playing on Spartan, Pro deal or no Deal. They pretty much take all the TDS hit for you, give you a TDS certificate and give you your entire payout. I cant think of another poker site which will go this far to grow the game in the country.
This makes me very very proud of the company I am associated with and would recommend it to anyone proudly.

Also, there are a bunch of freerolls (100k+ prizepools), Cash bombs (Seriously? how much money do they have?) and Crazy4Omaha promos happening right now in case you guys are interested.

Happy New year.

May the flop be with you.

Spartan Pro Hunt (SPH)

October 1, 2015 in News

Hello Everyone,

When I started off in Poker back in 2011, I was a complete newbie. Yes, I was interested in learning this game and was very keen on getting good at it. However, it is an expensive game to learn and you need the best people in the industry to mentor you. I was outright lucky to be noticed by Intervention and be mentored by him.

Throughout my career I never really had to look out for people to help me with the game. I was good friends with the best players in the country and all I had to do was ask. I consider myself extremely lucky to be where I am now and the part, small or big, my mentors have played is HUGE.

One of the many reasons, why I took up the Pro deal from spartanpoker.com is because the Team is being mentored by Rohit Bhalla, one of the best Poker brains in the country. It’s awesome that I get to learn from the best for free.

From a player perspective, I think that we need to create opportunities for players across stakes to grow. With this in mind I present to you, THE SPARTAN PRO HUNT.
A very unique initiative by Spartan to promote the up and coming players in India, give them an initial bankroll, mentor them and launch them as online pros.

Spartan Pro Hunt (SPH) :

Participants: Max 100 players. Applicants must have a decent understanding of online poker along with playing experience.

Staking: ₹5,000 starting bankroll.

Target: Play 10,000 hands of Hold’em or Omaha cash games in 30 days.

Limits: MAX 3/6, Texas Hold’em or Omaha, any number of tables on SpartanPoker.com

Profits: 100% of profits after completing 10,000 hands goes to the player.

Risk: Penalty of ₹500 on losing all of the staring roll or non completion of target hands. Refundable deposit in Spartan bank account before starting challenge.

Caution: Collusion/chip dumping will result in immediate freezing of funds in both accounts.

Prize: The winner of this Spartan Pro Hunt (SPH) will be made an exclusive offer to join Team Spartan alongside me as a permanent representative for SpartanPoker.com. This will encompass a long term online staking deal, coaching and guidance from Team mentors, plus an opportunity to build your own brand in the poker world.

Interested players can apply by sending a mail to [email]promotions@SpartanPoker.com[/email], using the format as below:

Name:
Contact:
Email:
Spartan ScreenName:
Online Poker Experience:

We will be finalizing participants by 6th Oct and SPH kicks off on the 7th Oct.

The House Of Spew

March 13, 2014 in News

“Brooo I lost 1000 bigs trying to 3 barrel that fish brooo” “ Bhai mein bahot khrab khela yaar”. “I agree my line doesn’t make sense, but I bet 100k into 20k and he called with middle pair. I mean seriously?”. And of course “How can I fold Pair gutty on the turn when he shoves 200k into 60k.? Obviously I call .. I had the odds to call. This is so standard.. You cant play scared money dude”.
This is Spew.
and SPEW is us.
My partner and I have been spewing consistently over the last 3 years and we decided to share the love (and money). So we decided to start a company to promote this idea. As crazy as it may sound its true.
Yes we are The House of Spew and we are going to play host to the sickest cash games ever played in India.
A little bit of history:
We have been attending cash game festivals and similar events over the past 3 years and we always felt that something is missing. When we are giving so many hours, we expect a lot more in return than accommodation and free food. We want to feel special, welcome, well taken care of etc. But the key quotients of hospitality were missing.
So we decided to start our own event where we make people feel special. We understand poker players (Indian poker players) at a very very close level because we are primarily poker players and I think that is our key strength.
About the Event.
Our first event is scheduled in Bangalore from March 20th to March 24th. We are offering cash games and tournaments over 5 action packed days and all the information can be found on our facebook page.We will be updating our page and website with information regarding tournament structures, rake structures and satellite details.
So be ready for the best cash game festival to have ever happened in India and I promise you that this one is going to be EPIC!
Oh by the way, when we say festival we mean it!!!

The Great Indian Misconception -The Diary of a Bad Reg

November 20, 2013 in News

“Reg” or regular is a poker term often used by online and live players alike to identify a player who frequents a particular poker room or stake. (He is a reg at the wynn, he is a 200nl reg). Technically a reg is someone who understands the game and is tough to play against. It’s very common for players to add an adjective to Reg . For ex: Good Reg and Bad Reg.
A good reg is what I mentioned above. This blog is about the Bad Reg.

Rewind to 2011 Feb:

This was when I luckboxed haaard on an online site in India and made some money to go to Goa to play my first tournament series the IPC. At that time IPC was the best tournament series to play. I still remember playing my first ever live tournament clearly. I sat on seat 1 on table 1 and had no clue what was going on. All the Indian “Regs” on my table (with shades and funky headphones) keep eyeballing you for no reason and make ridiculous 4x opens and think they are baller. I played uber nit (Which by the way is still considered the best strategy in tournament poker in India by a lot of people) and made 2 final tables in that series. I got my instant status upgradation. (Noone to Semi baller).

Intervntion:

I always have believed and spoken about the fact that if I am anything in poker its because of Intervntion. Easily the most trust worthy and helpful person I have ever met in my life. Not only as a poker player, he is just a fabulous guy. When he started coaching me I knew nothing about this game. (I only thought I knew a lot like a lot of Indian Regs). He had the patience and knowledge to guide be step by step to teach me whatever I know today. He is a great coach and taught me a lot but if I had to improve I had to do a lot of learning myself too, which I dint.
Mid 2011:

With Adi’s help I had any more final tables and even my first win at the PGT main event in September 2011. Of course with that came the instant status upgradation. (Semi baller to Baller).

End of 2011:

The RunGood of a life time.
APT Goa and APPT Macau. I had a dream Nov- Dec with most of my big cashes coming in and I instantly became the next big thing in Indian Poker. Articles written about me everywhere, interviews, Player of the year etc etc.
Reality Check: I still remember a few hands from APT and APPT I played which I don’t discuss with people because they are so bad. Ofcourse I had the fundamentals right, but that was it. I had no idea what was going on with those tournaments. Looking back , I can’t believe I won those tournaments with that skill set.

2012-2013:

I continued to build on the number of cashes and final tables but was I any good? I don’t think so.
Present Day:
Poker in India has grown tremendously over the last few years and with growth people are more aware of poker. We can identify good and bad plays and think we are insta baller. No we are not. We are average at best. Please don’t let your tournament cashes fool you into believing that you are a good player. If you think you have had considerable success in tournaments look at the number of tournaments you have played. If your success is mostly in live tournaments in India, rethink. Indian tournaments are softer than first deposit freerolls on stars. It is no reflection of your poker skill.

My results had blinded me for a bit and I did not really analyze my game or it dint bother me, coz hey I was winning everytime I put it in. why would I?
But it was later I realized that I am actually a Bad reg at best. Of course I know funky terms and words like “Flop texture” “Top of the range” “Range merge”. Etc, but that’s all I do. I don’t play this game well and I haven’t put enough effort like a lot of very good players. But the realization that I was a bad reg made me lose any arrogance if I had any, and made me wonder what can make me a better player?
You can watch videos and read books till forever and still suck at poker. What I realized is you need Heart. You need the heart to improve your game. U need the heart to work on it. You need heart to put in volume, to evaluate your game, to identify your leaks etc etc. If you NEED to improve you will, if you WANT to u wont.

The next time a bad player is on the final table of a huge event you say “Oh god, he is sooo bad”. Rethink. Are you good enough to make that comment?

With love,
The Bad Reg.

Life EV.

May 30, 2013 in News

I havent blogged in a bit and thought I will write one before boarding to Colombo for the weekend. As I always say, Thank you lord, For letting me do what I love doing for a living. Thank you.

As many of you know I used to work in the corporate sector for a good 7 years before I decided to play Poker for a living. I used to live a happy life, Of course and I grew the corporate ladder one step at a time like many others which gave me the feeling of ” I am growing as a person” in general. I used to make decent money and an occassional bonus which is great. I used to like my job but not love it. I was a trainer and I loved training right from the time I started it but somehow felt really bored and monotonous after a while. Sonn after I moved to a Management Role and was fine. And then Poker Happened. Over the last few weeks I was doing some kind of a self reflection thing and wondered, what have I achieved so far being a Poker player for the last 2.5years. This is what I found.

Passion: I was always passionate about Poker. Thats what drew me into it in the first place. I wanted to learn, I wanted to get better, I wanted to win. In life there were times when I needed something badly and ever wondered if I could ever get it. Poker gave me the answer. If u got passion, it will come to you. Poker has made me a believer of positive energy and attitude and it has always worked.

Patience: Yes, no matter how aggro spewy you are you need patience in Poker. Poker has taught me the importance of patience. When I look back I see a very impatient guy who jumped to conclusions, decisions etc which could put me in a lotta shit. Not any more. Poker has taught me to be patient and logical in my reasoning. Even in day to day life.

Being Humble: Poker, I dunno about any other sport, has this great quality of keeping you humble and grounded. I think its because of the balance it has in general which keeps people humble. It can take you from great highs to great lows in a matter of months, may be even less and hey it can bring you right back up too.

Money : Poker has given me a decent amount of money for the last couple of years and I am really grateful for that. I have seen more money in my account in the last 2 years than all my 7 years of corporate life out together. I never used to save when i was working so that is one of the reasons, but I am thankful to god for all the blessings that way,

Travel: I get to travel a loooooot as a poker player and it was never a part of my corporate life, other than home to work and back. I have travelled in Asia mostly but have had a lot of fun while doing it. I have met great people, tried great food, great hotels, great casinos, done crazy shit and it has been one helluva ride. One of the reasons I love my profession is this.

People : I have made quite a few friends in my corporate career. Some close ones too.. But for some reason, the friends I made in Poker are way close to me than the others. May be because we end up talking to each other a lot more because not many people in India understand Poker. But this is one thing I am going to treasure for life. Its just great how poker players care for each other and take care of each other in such a competitive profession. Something which you will never see in a corporate set up. For non poker players reading this, These are the same friends are you going against when you play poker in India.

Intervntion : I remember a conversation between Rishabh and I in Delhi last year. He asked, ” Is there anyone in this world other than your family, who you can die and kill for”?. I said yes, Intervntion. This is the influence he has on most people he interacts with. I am putting intervntion as a separate bullet point here not because of what he has taught me in Poker. I have already spoken about that, But this one is life in general.
Adi, is the most humble and down to earth guy you will ever meet in Poker. What I have learned from him is way more than what a teacher could teach his student. May be he is the reason, I stay grounded. Corporate biggies, who do long ass sessions for their teams in continuous improvement (they spend a lotta money on this), should prabavly should just do one small session called intervntion and that should be it. A clear example of how to be the best and how to stay that way.

Thats it for now. Hope to get a decent score in Colombo. Over n Out.

Online Rankings

i Top Ranked Poker Players in India
Member Won
Member Won
Member Won
₹1,29,29,197
₹1,25,88,313
₹1,21,00,140
₹1,20,22,333
5.Vinay B Vinay B
₹1,15,16,843
6.M L M L
₹1,14,45,592
₹1,09,13,473
₹1,05,83,948
₹99,75,577
₹99,60,672
Member Profit
Member Profit
Member Profit
₹55,77,649
₹50,59,154
₹47,48,174
₹46,35,740
₹44,93,503
₹43,56,316
₹43,24,686
₹42,41,254
₹41,92,614
₹41,05,805
Member Points
Member Points
Member Points
43,040
36,048
28,827
4.N K N K
28,769
26,548
25,649
24,726
24,446
9.M L M L
23,604
23,352

Top Online Poker Rooms

Top
PokerGuru