This Week in Poker: August 15 – 21
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- PG News August 21, 2018
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6 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
This past week witnessed several high-profile tournaments, electrifying action and nail-biting finishes both on the live and online felts. But overshowing all the action was the unparalleled support that the poker fraternity offered to the victims of the Kerala floods. While all major poker brands contributed financially to the relief funds by setting up promotions and special events on their sites, 9stacks pledged to donate three-times of the rake generated in their flagship Sunday Stacks tournament that was held on August 19, to the Kerala Relief Fund. The franchise donated ₹90,900, while the winner of the event, Sanjay Taneja generously donated his entire winnings, amounting to ₹75,750, to help the flood victims.
Several online poker sites hosted high value tournaments over the week doling out gigantic payouts to the winners. The show-stealer was our “PokerGuru Star of the Week” Neel ‘Worm33’ Joshi, who crushed the Vegas Freedom Special ₹40 Lakhs GTD Tournament hosted by India’s most trusted poker site PokerBaazi for a massive ₹12.57 Lakhs payday. In the meantime, the Khelo365 Colossal Leaderboard has successfully progressed to its third week and this week ‘reflex’ topped the Gold Leaderboard for ₹1 Lakh, while the Silver Leaderboard and Bronze Leaderboard were topped by ‘pinto’ for ₹60,000 and ‘UrAjoker’ for ₹22,000, respectively.
Meanwhile, the CEO of The Stars Group (TSG), Rafi Ashkenazi revealed that PokerStars India was still in its nascent stage and a lot more work needed to be done before the site’s marketing and promotional activities would run full-fledged.
Closer home, the Asian circuit was dominated by the thrills of a brand-new international poker series The Indian Poker Series (TIPS), even as Asian Pacific Tour (APT) Korea Incheon closed out another smashing outing. Brainchild of poker pros Jaydeep Dawer and Manish Goenka, TIPS was a raging success in its inaugural run, and featured nine events alongside high stakes cash games that were held across five days at The Kings Casino, Rozvadov in the Czech Republic. The most remarkable score among the 25 Indian scores posted at the series was the High Roller title win by Kanishk Upreti who chopped the top prize with runner-up, Tanveer Singh Kohli, with both banking €6,086 (₹4.85 Lakhs). At the same time, three Indians headlined by Jagdeep Singh (€48,000 – ₹38.35 Lakhs) won big in the PLO €25/€50 cash games.
At Incheon in Korea, the 2018 Asian Poker Tour (APT) ran from August 8 to August 19 at Paradise City Casino and saw a healthy mix of international players from different circuits converge over 22 events. A grand prize pool of â‚©980,000,000 ($873,851) was created in the series and Japan’s Inotsume Kazuma, who posted six scores in the series, was declared the Player of the Series.
Captained by WSOP bracelet winner Nikita Luther, Indian pros Kunal Patni, Amit Jain and Dhaval Mudgal will represent India in the World Poker Tour (WPT) Korea Global Teams Event, that will be making its debut at WPT Korea from September 18-24. The Indian challengers are expected to come out in large numbers in WPT Korea as well as the WPT’s new Asian stop, Vietnam, scheduled from September 26 to October 4 this year.
Online Railbird Report
Paying tribute to the country’s 72nd Independence Day, India’s most trusted poker site, PokerBaazi’s ‘Freedom Special’ one-day series was a smashing hit. Neel ‘Worm33’ Joshi won the Vegas Freedom Special ₹40 Lakhs GTD Tournament for ₹12.57 Lakhs and is our “PokerGuru Star of the Week”.
Other notable scores of the week include –
Vivekk ‘Vivek25’ Dube won ₹3.03 Lakhs for 1st place in the PokerBaazi ‘BSS ₹15 Lakhs GTD SuperStack’
‘vivek423’ won ₹2.86 Lakhs for 1st place in the PokerStars India ‘Sunday Special ₹15 Lakhs GTD’
‘realkidsanju’ won ₹1.20 Lakhs for 1st place in the PokerBaazi ‘BSS ₹5 Lakhs GTD MonsterStack’
Tushar ‘tushar07’ Jain won ₹1.19 Lakhs for 1st place in the PokerBaazi ‘Freedom Whoop ₹5 Lakhs GTD’
Sanjay ‘WereWolf’ Taneja won ₹75,750 for 1st place in the 9stacks ‘Sunday Stacks’
‘cvc3333’ won ₹51,907 for 1st place in the PokerStars India ‘Sunday Storm ₹3 Lakhs GTD’
‘prawnpickel’ won ₹50,751 for 1st place in the PokerStars India ‘Sunday Stars ₹2 Lakhs GTD’
‘Gambler’ won ₹45,000 for 1st place in the MadOverPoker ‘Dynamite’
Akshay ‘sherlock 52’ Nasa won ₹42,840 for 1st place in PokerBaazi ‘BSS PLO ₹1 Lakhs GTD’
Ankit ‘Ankitjn’ Jain won ₹42,000 for 1st place in 9stacks ‘Sunday Turbo’
Himanshu ‘himanshu.zak’ Singh won ₹35,000 for 1st place in PokerBaazi ‘BSS ₹1 Lakh GTD Turbo FreezeOut’
Puneet ‘MujheMatRoko’Arora won ₹25,789 for 1st place in the MadOverPoker ‘Grenade’
‘pokerkapps’ won ₹22,941 for 1st place in the PokerStars India ‘Sunday Warm-Up ₹1 Lakhs GTD’
Bhaibhav ‘Harsharya’ Kumar won ₹22,200 for 1st place in the MadOverPoker ‘NightCrawler’
Himanshu ‘Tashu’ Sahu won ₹16,461 for 1st place in the MadOverPoker ‘Madhouse’
PokerLion Announces Attractive Offers for Bank-Rollers
India’s latest online poker site, PokerLion has announced an attractive offer, to encourage players who register with the site to download the PokerLion Android app and make deposits. As part of the offer, players get two tournament tickets on depositing ₹1,000, 10 tickets on depositing ₹2,500 and one tournament ticket daily for 30 days on depositing ₹5,000.
Read the complete story here.
PokerStars India Still in ‘Soft Launch’ Stage Says TSG CEO Rafi Ashkenazi
CEO of PokerStars’ parent firm, The Stars Group (TSG) Rafi Ashkenazi has divulged that PokerStars India was still in its nascent stage of launch and the company had not yet started full-fledged marketing and promotional activities.
Read the complete story here.
2018 The Indian Poker Series (TIPS)
Over a five-day run, The Indian Poker Series (TIPS) was stage to some of the most seasoned challengers from the international and domestic felts. Poker fans in India could catch the exciting action at TIPS through live streaming of the high-stakes PLO cash games and the Main Event.
A total of 25 Indians posted scores at the series. The top performers in the tournaments were Kanishk Upreti and Tanveer Singh Kohli, who reached a heads-up deal in the High Roller with each pocketing €6,086 (₹4.85 Lakhs), while Upreti won the event and Kohli finished runner-up.
Samay Parikh’s (€3,165- ₹2.51 Lakhs) third place finish in the High Roller and Denish Ashok Desai’s (€2,522 -₹2 Lakhs) runner-up score in the Poker Classics IIwere the other top highlights for the Team.
Read the complete story here.
A chief attraction at TIPS was the high stakes PLO cash game, Special Indian Cash Kings – PLO €25/€50 event. From India, six players namely, Jagdeep Singh (€48,000 – ₹38,35,437), Navkiran Singh (€30,000 – ₹23,97,148), Samay Parikh (€12,000 – ₹9,58,859), Sahaj Singh Bali (€4,000 – ₹3,19,619), Suraj Agrawal (€2,000 – ₹1,59,809) and Gaurav Gala (€1,000 – ₹79,904), were seen in thick of action at tables with railbirds back home treated to an entertaining live stream of the game.
Read the complete story here.
In the Main Event, Team India managed to pull in seven cashes and the top runners were Hetalkumar Desai (35th for €561 – ₹44,599) and Varun Gupta (44th for €466 – ₹37,047).
Indian Cashes at TIPS 2018
Read the complete story here.
Winners at TIPS 2018
WPT to Host Stops in Korea & Vietnam, Nikita Luther to Lead Team India in First-Ever WPT Global Teams Event
The World Poker Tour (WPT)’s 17th edition has a marked ‘Asian swing’ this year, with a new stop being added to Vietnam, featuring 14 events from September 26 to October 4 at the Pro Poker Club in Ho Chi Minh City.
While WPT Japan will be held from September 15-17 in Tokyo, WPT Korea is scheduled for September 18-24 and for the first time ever host a team-based, WPT Global Teams Event where 16 country-based teams will compete. WSOP bracelet winner Nikita Luther will lead the Indian team comprising of Kunal Patni, Amit Jain and Dhaval Mudgal, while a sizeable Indian participation is expected at both WPT Korea and WPT Vietnam.
Read the complete story here.
One97 Communications & AGTech Infuse ₹110 Crores in Gamepind
Gaming operator Gamepind Entertainment that started as a joint venture between Paytm founder One97 Communications and AGTech Holdings Ltd has received fresh funds to the tune of ₹110 Crores for expanding business operations in India. Former Paytm executive Sudhanshu Gupta has also joined Gamepind as Chief Operating Officer (COO).
Read the complete story here.
Schedule For 2019 Season of Asian Poker Tour Released
The 2019 season schedule of the Asian Poker Tour (APT) was recently released and it revealed a total of 11 events, out of which only eight have been confirmed, with the others likely to be announced in the coming months.
Read the complete story here.
Pennsylvania Grants Online Gaming Licenses To 3 Casinos
Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) has approved interactive gaming licenses to three casinos, Harrah’s Casino in Philadelphia, Parx Casino and Mount Airy Casino allowing these setups to offer customers internet slots, table games and online poker.
Read the complete story here.
PokerStars Seeks Player Feedback With ‘Have Your Say About #PSPC’ Survey
Seeking to craft a structure and schedule for the PokerStars Players NLHE Championship (PSPC) to be held in the Bahamas from January 6-10, 2019, PokerStars has invited inputs from players, team pros, all current Platinum Pass winners and players registered in the Stars database who have bought into the PokerStars live events of buy-in $5,000 or above via a link available on the PokerStars blog and emails.
Read the complete story here.
2018 APT Korea Incheon Championships
The 22-event long 2018 Asian Poker Tour (APT) Korea Incheon Championships was held from August 8 to August 19 at the Paradise City Casino, at Incheon, South Korea. Players from across the world participated in the event which resulted in 1,625 total entries from players representing 21 nationalities. Creating a grand prize pool of â‚©980,000,000 ($873,851), the series was a phenomenal success.
While all 22 events crowned winners, the most awaited event of the series was the Main Event which was taken down by Japanese pro Iori Yogi, who claimed his second APT Championships title and banked â‚©40,463,000 (~$35,875) for defeating a playing field of 192 runners.
Read the complete story here.
Another popular event at the series was the Championships Event that drew in 148 participants and was shipped by Jaepil You who claimed the top prize worth â‚©49,770,000 ($44,357), along with the APT Championship Trophy and the coveted APT Championship ring.
Read the complete story here.
The APT Player of the Series award was bestowed upon Japan’s Inotsume Kazuma who posted six scores in the series and accumulated 953.28 points.
Winners at the 2018 APT Korea Incheon Championships
Read the complete story here.
The 2018 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open (SHRPO) ran from August 2 to 14 and consisted of 26 events. The series was headlined by the return of The Big 4 with $6,500,000 in combined guarantees.
Winners at the 2018 SHRPO
While Marc MacDonnell won the $1,100 RE for $119,465, Brandon Eisen defeated the likes of WSOP bracelet winners Ryan D’Angelo, Jeremy Ausmus and WSOPC gold ring winner Joseph Cheong to win the $5,250 Championship for a career-best score of $771,444.
Read the complete story here.
New York based pro Alex Foxen defended his title by winning the $2,650 No Limit Hold’em (Single Re-Entry) for $208,452 and WSOPC gold ring winner Jake Schindler took down the last ‘Big 4’ event for $800,758.
Read the complete story here.
Danny Wong Wins Mega Millions XIX
Danny Wong outlasted a monstrous filed of over 8,600 entries which included several big names such as Gordon Vayo, Barry Woods, Ari Engel, Jordan Cristos and Brett Murray, at the Mega Millions XIX event hosted at the Bicycle Hotel Casino in Los Angeles. Wong agreed to a three-way deal with DJ Alexander and Tony Chu to take home the top prize of $234,297, along with the trophy.
Read the complete story here.
Indian-Origin Gautam Dhingra Wins Melbourne Poker Championship Main Event
Indian-origin player Gautam Dhingra crushed the marquee AU$1,650 buy-in Main Event at the Melbourne Poker Championship, which attracted a player pool of 523 participants, and pocketed a payday of AU$156,051 ($113,309).
Read the complete story here.
Adam Ross Wins WSOPC Harrah’s Cherokee Main Event
Adam Ross fielded across 1,056 players to win the WSOPC Harrah’s Cherokee Main Event for $295,970, while Indian-origin player Raveesh Asnani narrowly missed the title, finishing third for $135,986.
Read the complete story here.
And with this, we conclude this week’s round up of the latest news updates and developments from the world of poker. We will return again next week with our weekly report, stay tuned!
Related Articles:
2. PokerLion Presents Poker Glory for Bank-Rollers
3. TIPS 2018: Kanishk Upreti & Tanveer Singh Chop High Roller, Samay Parikh Finishes 3rd
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- KeywordsTags: Neel Joshi, Online Gaming, Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open, Star of the Week, This Week in Poker, WPT Korea, Gautam Dhingra, Melbourne Poker Championship, PokerLion
