WSOP 2019: Vivek Rughani Leads 23 Indians to Day 2C in the $10K Main Event

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  • Attreyee Khasnabis July 6, 2019
  • 6 Minutes Read

As predicted the last and final starting flight of Event #73: $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em MAIN EVENT – World Championship attracted the largest number of entries, overshooting the single-day attendance record of the WSOP Main Event. Day 1C logged in 4,879 entries, taking the overall player pool to 8,129 entries. With late registration open till the start of Day 2, this could turn out to be the biggest WSOP Main Event in history, eclipsing the record of 8,773 entries set in 2016.

After the five levels of scheduled play, 3,664 runners were left in the fray and among them were 23 Indian challengers led by Vivek Rughani who bagged a stack of 171,300 (214 big blinds). He will headline the 22 other Indians to Day 2C which is slated to commence at 11 AM (Pacific Time Zone) on July 7.

 

Team India Chip Counts For Day 2C

Player Chip Count
Vivek Rughani171,300
Akshay Nasa 166,900
Tarun Goyal147,600
Sriharsha Doddapaneni134,200
Ankush Agarwala 134,000
Shravan Chhabria114,800
Kunal Punjwani 112,300
Jaideep Sajwan111,600
Madhav Gupta99,200
Raghav Bansal96,900
Naresh Veeravalli 89,600
Abhishek Rathod 83,200
Kartik Ved 81,500
Siddharth Mundada 80,100
Sajal Gupta78,900
Shashank Jain 77,600
Aditya Sushant47,000
Akash Malik42,400
Aditya Agarwal41,300
Dhaval Mudgal39,800
Goonjan Mall37,000
Gokul Parvathaneni36,500
Paawan Bansal27,400

 

James Henson (316,100 – 396 big blinds) topped the 3,665 survivors and claimed the chip lead on Day 1C.

Day 2AB will begin at 11 AM on July 6 and will see the group of 11 Indians who had qualified from Day 1A and 1B, led by Yudhishter Jaswal (193,400 – 242 big blinds), back in action.

 

Main Event Madness

Despite being the most-awaited, famous and prestigious tournament of the poker world, things at the Main Event can often get quite crazy. That craziness and chaos was on full display on Day 1C.

The most shocking thing to happen during the day was the 7.1 magnitude earthquake that hit Southern California, affecting both the United States and Mexico. The tremors were felt in the Rio, causing quite a panic among the players participating in the Main Event. Officials quickly decided to send off all the players on an early dinner break as a safety precaution. The play eventually resumed after 10 pm.

Many players in attendance tweeted about the natural disaster, including our poker icon Aditya Agarwal.

But it wasn’t just Mother Nature that had gone crazy, players seemed to be going off their rockers as well, with two players getting disqualified from the Main Event in less than two hours. The first incident took place in the Brasilia Red section. After winning a small pot, Georgii Belianin reached out and scooped up his left-hand neighbor’s unattended stack and added it to his own stack. Allegedly, the player did so with a smile on his face leading some to believe it was a poor attempt at humor. Whether it was funny or not, it did bring about Belianin’s disqualification as tournament director Jack Effel himself came over to escort the player out of the tournament area.

The next incident invoking the disqualification involved a player not only making a scene, but also mooning his tablemates. At Table #317 in the Pavilion Yellow section, a player seated went all-in blind before flipping over his hand, revealing the . He then began shouting, “I’m all-in blind! Look, I’m blind everybody,” while he covered his eyes and turned around. What happened next was caught on video by Scott Davies and Ian Chan, who then shared it on Twitter.

Even being disqualified from the Main Event didn’t stop the man from his crazy antics and he was spotted at the Luxor walking on a poker table.

As the Day 1C neared its end, things just got crazier as Mark Kroon promised to buy a dealer a car if he won the tournament. With the flop open , Kroon was all in for 76,600 from the button over the big blind’s bet of 16,500, when he said, “If I win this pot. And then win the tournament. I’m buying this dealer a new car!” The big blind eventually mucked, and Kroon raked in the pot. Will he really buy the dealer a car if he wins? Only time will tell, but given the insane things that have been happening at the Main Event, anything is possible!

 

Event #73: $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em MAIN EVENT – World Championship – Day 1C

Day 1C smashed the previous single-day attendance record at the WSOP Main Event by registering a total of 4,879 entries. The player tally has now reached 8,129 entries, and with late registration open till Day 2, it is a definite possibility that the 2019 Main Event will surpass the 8,773-entry record set at the 2006 Main Event.

Team India too came out all guns blazing on Day 1C. Though the total number of Indians who were in attendance on Day 1C is unknown, 23 of our challengers did make it through to Day 2C. Bagging the biggest stack among the Indian contingent was Vivek Rughani. Best remembered for his “Poker Boom” comment which went viral during last year’s Main Event, Rughani banked a career-best score of $77,695 (~₹53.47 Lakhs) for finishing 88th in his very first Main Event appearance.

Vivek Rughani
Vivek Rughani

This year too, he is off to an equally impressive start, ending Day 1C with 171,300 (214 big blinds) in chips.

Vivek Rughani_WSOP_Main Event_Day 1C_Insta Story

Akshay Nasa (166,900 – 209 big blinds), Tarun Goyal (147,600 – 185 big blinds), Sriharsha Doddapaneni (134,200 – 168 big blinds), Ankush Agarwala (134,000 – 167 big blinds), Shravan Chhabria (114,800 – 144 big blinds), Kunal Punjwani (112,300 – 140 big blinds), Jaideep Sajwan (111,600 – 140 big blinds), PokerGuru Staking’s Madhav Gupta (99,200 – 124 big blinds), Raghav Bansal (96,900 – 121 big blinds), Naresh Veeravalli (89,600 – 112 big blinds), Abhishek Rathod (83,200 – 104 big blinds), PokerGuru Ambassador Kartik Ved (81,500 – 102 big blinds), Siddharth Mundada (80,100 – 100 big blinds), Sajal Gupta (78,900 – 99 big blinds) and Shashank Jain (77,600 – 97 big blinds), managed to accrue above-average stacks heading to Day 2C.

PokerStars India Team pro Aditya Agarwal has had a swingy time at the series so far. After a tough start, Agarwal finally managed two cashes at the series starting with Event #46: $500 WSOP.com ONLINE Hold’em Turbo Deepstack (61st for $2,147 – ₹1.48 Lakhs) and then in Event #64: $888 Crazy Eights No-Limit Hold’em (1,283rd for $1,380 – ₹95,151), but he is yet to run deep in a bracelet event this summer. Agarwal is undoubtedly one of Team India’s most experienced campaigners at the WSOP and was the first Indian to crack the top 100 in the Main Event when he finished 71st for $96,445 (~₹66.85 Lakhs) in 2015.

Aditya Agarwal
Aditya Agarwal

A permanent fixture at the series for 14 years, Agarwal has scored at the Main Event an incredible seven times and is four cashes away from eclipsing Berry Johnston‘s record of 10 WSOP Main Event cashes.

Agarwal may have been running bad at the series, but things started to look more favorable for him coming into the Main Event. In fact, he won his Main Event seat through an $80 All-In satellite hosted on WSOP.com. As always, he kept everyone updated on his progress on Twitter.

He is eyeing his eighth cash at the Main Event and has just crossed the first hurdle by taking forward a stack of 41,300 (52 big blinds) to Day 2C.

Former bracelet winner Aditya Sushant (47,000 – 59 big blinds), Akash Malik (42,400 – 53 big blinds), Dhaval Mudgal (39,800 – 50 big blinds), Goonjan Mall (37,000 – 46 big blinds), Gokul Parvathaneni (36,500 – 46 big blinds) and Paawan Bansal (27,400 – 24 big blinds), rounded out the Indian chip counts at the end of Day 1C.

PokerGuru Ambassador Ashish Ahuja has had a dream debut thus far, but unfortunately couldn’t last till the end of the day’s play.

Ashish Ahuja
Ashish Ahuja

India’s only female bracelet winner, Nikita Luther is another Indian who has been in top form throughout the summer. She narrowly missed out on claiming her career-first WPT title at the Zynga Poker WPT500 Las Vegas where she finished runner-up for $109,300 (₹75.32 Lakhs). She was seen in action on Day 1C where during level 4, she lost the majority of her stack to Jonathan Plens. With the board running , Luther’s was no match for Plens’ . Luther stack dwindled down to 14,900 and a few hands later, she was out of the competition.

Nikita Luther
Nikita Luther

The breakout star from last year’s Main Event, Nishant Sharma was another Indian who fell out on Day 1C unable to repeat his historic run last year.

Nishant Sharma_WSOP_Main Event Day 1C_Insta Story_1

Sadly, it wasn’t meant to be, as he busted out barely an hour into the day’s proceedings.

Nishant Sharma_WSOP_Main Event Day 1C_Insta Story_2

Two-time bracelet winner Nipun Java had also jumped into the action of Day 1C but failed to make it through to Day 2C.

Though numerous players fell out on Day 1C, perhaps the most shocking elimination of them all was that of 10-time bracelet winner Phil Ivey who was knocked out of the competition in just the first level of the day.

Other noteworthy names who busted out on Day 1C were Dietrich Fast, Sofia Lovgren, Juha Helppi, Martin Jacobson, Doug Polk, and Rainer Kempe.

A massive group of Indian-origin players also advanced to Day 2C including Sanjay Mayekar (265,100), Ajay Chabra (191,600), Ashish Kasaraneni (187,200), Balakrishna Patur (183,400), Sasidhar Bobba (160,500), Srikanth Koneru (147,100), Gurpreet Taneja (146,900), Nitesh Rawtani (127,500), Suresh Prabhu (117,000), Shankar Pillai (102,500), Jaspal Brar (93,500), Sandeep Bangar (92,200), Talesh Patel (91,300), Mukul Pahuja (86,700), Gurpreet Lubana (80,300), Amit Makhija (76,700), Manish Vaswani (76,100), Sudhish Suryawansi (75,900), Ronit Chamani (72,800), Sunny Chattha (62,700), Vinny Pahuja (61,400), Yashveen Mudireddy (59,100), Amarender Puri (57,400), Prithvi Rudrappa (54,500), Sai Sirandas (52,800), Samir Bhatia (52,500), Mahendran Ramanathan (45,100), Neil Aggarwal (41,700), Ravinder Bedi (41,400), Rajasekhara Munnangi (38,200), Raminder Singh (35,000), Amitabh Mehra (34,400), Ratharam Sivagnanam (32,800), Gurmit Advani (29,800), Sanket Desai (28,600), Sandeep Vasudevan (22,800), Manoj Ravi (20,600), and Vinodkumar Paddolkar (9,300).

Among the notables who advanced to Day 2C were Adam Friedman (263,100), Timur Margolin (197,400), Calvin Anderson (178,100), Joey Couden (170,300), Josh Arieh (169,500), Andrew Lichtenberger (141,200), Keith Lehr (115,400), Loni Harwood (94,500) and John Phan (92,200).

James Henson leads the 3,664 Day 1C survivors with a stack of 316,100 (396 big blinds), and he will be coming back as the chip leader on Day 2C which will play out on July 7.

James Henson
James Henson

Top 10 Chip Counts At the End of Day 1C

1. James Henson – 316,100

2. Mike McDonald – 306,300

3. Joshua Ray – 304,200

4. Robert Kokoska – 285,000

5. Mohamed Mamouni – 284,000

6. Barry Donovan – 280,100

7. Robert Layne – 280,000

8. Dylan Meier – 277,700

9. Yervand Boyadjian – 277,400

10. Tom Cannuli – 275,000

The Day 1C qualifiers will now get a rest day as the 2,407 survivors (Day 1A – 990 and Day 1B – 1,417) from the first two starting flights return for Day 2AB later tonight.

Bryan Campanello

Top 10 Chip Counts At the Start of Day 2AB

1. Bryan Campanello – 417,500

2. Adam Owen – 351,800

3. Raymond Rice – 335,000

4. Asi Moshe – 330,200

5. Gary Blackwood – 330,200

6. Tyler Gaston – 329,200

7. Allen Kessler – 301,800

8. Brandon Fraizer – 298,400

9. Timothy Su – 297,300

10. Galen Hall – 295,700

Content & Images Courtesy: World Series of Poker

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