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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
Live poker dominated the action enthralling railbirds with exciting moments on the felts over the past week. Right as Team Pune Kings won Match Indian Poker League (MIPL) Season 3 in Mumbai on October 23-24, the Global Poker League (GPL) India reached the finale of its inaugural season in Delhi, awarding the to-be-announced winning team five PSPC Platinum Passes.
In the global context, Indian players are carving out a niche for themselves and the latest to join the hallways of fame is Delhi-based architect Nikhil Segel. Segel went on to achieve three personal challenges and won #TheUltimateSweat challenge by Team PokerStars pro Jamie Staples, to win a Platinum Pass to the PSPC in Bahamas.
In international poker, the 2018 World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) continued its run and is fast coming to a close, with only the Main Event left to crown a champion. Shravan Chhabria was the only Indian who managed to advance to Day 3 of the Main Event, but he was eliminated short of the money. The biggest news coming in from the WSOP quarters is that of Shaun Deeb who was declared as the WSOP 2018 Player of the Year (POY).
Returning back to domestic action, Team Pune Kings took top honors at MIPL Season 3, taking home a whopping ₹1.35 Crores. Captained by Gaurav Gala, the team had distinguished pro in the mix including the First Lady of Indian Poker Shuchi Chamaria, online pros Rubin Labroo and Akshay Nasa, Tanmay Bagga and Akash Shekhar while Amar Katharani was the Team Manager.
Premier poker site Adda52 hosted ‘Poker Nights with Gayle,’ a Diwali bash attended by a number of poker pros and celebrities in presence of brand ambassador, cricketer Chris Gayle and celebrity pro Minishha Lamba.
Apart from the thrilling action of the live felts, the online felts too have been keeping us railbirds spellbound. While the Diwali Rush series launched by PokerStars India crowned many winners, it was Young Gun Abhinav ‘griezmann’ Iyer who stole the show and posted an impressive ₹3 Lakhs win at the Baazi Super Sunday (BSS) ₹15 Lakhs GTD SuperStack on India’s most trusted poker site, PokerBaazi, becoming our “PokerGuru Star of the Week”.
Moreover, premier online poker site Khelo365 announced the ‘Khelo365.com Immortals Daily Cash Leaderboard’ that has cash prizes up to ₹1 Lakh up for grabs daily.
Even as WSOPC stop at Harvey’s Lake Tahoe is scheduled to culminate on November 5, another WSOPC stop has kicked off in Choctaw Durant, Oklahoma today and will continue till November 12. Additionally, the WPT Deepstacks Brussels with run from November 6-11, while partypoker Caribbean Poker Party will be visiting Nassau from November 9-17.
We wrap up this week’s recap with tournament reports from 2018 WSOPE, 2018 WSOPC, WPTDeepStacks Pittsburgh and WPT Bestbet Bounty Scramble.
Dominating the online felts with a win of ₹3 Lakhs was Young Gun Abhinav ‘griezmann’ Iyer, who cruised to the top in the 299-strong entry field at the BSS ₹15 Lakhs GTD SuperStack on PokerBaazi and is therefore our “PokerGuru Star of the Week”.
Other notable scores of the week include –
‘Kiwishivi’ won ₹3.80 Lakhs for 1st place in the PokerStars India ‘Diwali Rush Sunday Special ₹20 Lakhs GTD’
Bunty ‘3streakbluff’ Choudhary won ₹1.55 Lakhs for 1st place in the PokerBaazi‘BSS PLO ₹5 Lakhs GTD’
Akash ‘akash_durr’ Gupta won ₹1.35 Lakhs for 1st place in the 9stacks ‘Sunday Stacks’
‘matpoker’ won ₹1.20 Lakhs for 1st place in the PokerBaazi ‘The Monster 6-Max ₹5 Lakhs GTD’
Ankit ‘akj290’ Jajodiawon ₹1.18 lakhs for 1st place in the PokerBaazi‘BSS MegaStack₹5 Lakhs GTD’
‘allezjuju’ won ₹58,908 for 1st place in the PokerStars India ‘Sunday Storm ₹3 Lakhs GTD’
Alok ‘VotaryoftheLaw’ Ranjan won ₹48,682 for 1st place in the PokerStars India ‘Sunday Stars ₹2 Lakhs GTD’
Himadri ‘Black Cat’ Pal won ₹48,000 for 1st place in the MadOverPoker‘Dyamite’
‘WaitJumpKill’ won ₹41,226 for 1st place in the PokerStars India ‘Diwali Rush Bigstack Turbo ₹2 Lakhs GTD’
‘BiggggTymeR’ won ₹35,069 for 1st place in the PokerStars India ‘Diwali Rush Sunday Supersonic ₹1.5 Lakhs GTD’
MahipalSinh ‘zti3978’ Valawon ₹34,000 for 1st place in the MadOverPoker ‘Grenade’
‘anandsankar’ won ₹31,050 for 1st place in the PokerStars India ‘Diwali Rush Warm Up ₹1.5 Lakhs GTD’
Ankit ‘ThugOfPoker’ Aryan won ₹18,750 for 1st place in the MadOverPoker‘Monthly Depositor Freeroll’
‘samdaddy1991’ won ₹15,059 for 1st place in the PokerStars India ‘Sunday Warm-Up ₹1 Lakh GTD’
‘500 FOX’ won ₹14,987 (Bounty – ₹13,056) for 1st place in the PokerStars India ‘Diwali Rush Deep Hyper Progressive KO’
Aditya ‘UnderWood’ Pareek won ₹9,738 for 1st place in the MadOverPoker ‘NightCrawler’
Khelo 365 has announced a new Immortals Daily Cash Leaderboard, with cash prizes to the tune of ₹1 Lakh up for grabs daily. The Leaderboard kicked off at 5.30 AM on October 23 and will continue till the site announces its next promotion.
Read the complete story here.
Online poker site Adda52 hosted ‘Poker Nights with Gayle’ to celebrate Diwali with top-notch poker players in Mumbai. With the site’s brand ambassador Chris Gayle, celebrity pro Minissha Lamba and CEO Mohit Agarwal in attendance, a number of Bollywood and TV personalities played a few games of poker with Gayle.
Read the complete story here.
Raj Kundra’s Viaan Industries Ltd., in association with International Federation of Match Poker (IFMP) successfully hosted Match Indian Poker League (MIPL) Season 3, in Mumbai on October 23-24. Team Pune Kings, comprising of First Lady of Indian Poker Shuchi Chamaria, online pros Rubin Labroo, Akshay Nasa as well as Tanmay Bagga and Akash Shekhar emerged the winners and win ₹1.35 Crores as the first-place prize.
Read the complete story here.
The World Poker Tour (WPT), in association with partypoker LIVE, have recently announced five premier poker event stops in 2019 that will be held in Russia, Spain, United Kingdom, Czech Republic and Canada.
Read the complete story here.
The online poker giant partypoker won the “Poker Operator of the Year” at the annual EGR Operator Awards for a second consecutive year, besting its competitors which included industry heavyweights like the Kindred Group and Stars Group.
Read the complete story here.
The World Series of Poker (WSOP) recently declared four-time WSOP gold bracelet winner Shaun Deeb as the WSOP 2018 Player of the Year (POY) after the New York-based pro accrued a total of 5,073 points to catapult himself to the top.
Read the complete story here.
Philippines gambling regulator, Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (PAGCOR) has announced that it will comply with the request by Boracay Inter-Agency Task Force (BIATF) to cancel all gaming franchises and provisional licenses in Boracay Island.
Read the complete story here.
Macau-based casino management firm DeClub has announced its plans to merge blockchain with gambling. DeClub has partnered with Malta-based company Wide Rich Global for launching the world’s first blockchain-based casino gaming hub.
Read the complete story here.
The schedule for 888poker LIVE stop at Aspers Casino in London has been been announced. The 12-day series will feature 10 tournaments and kick off on November 22 and culminate on December 3.
Read the complete story here.
US-based sports betting operator FanDuel has found itself in the midst of a copyright conflict, with competitor William Hill US, that has filed an infringement lawsuit against the company for alleged lifting of content from its ‘How-to’ guide.
Read the complete story here.
The 2018 World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) is coming to a resounding conclusion, with just two days of action left to play out in the €10,350 Main Event.
Three Indians challengers, Manish Goenka, Madhav Gupta and Shravan Chhabria entered the felts of the Main Event via Day 1B, and only Chhabria managed to make it as far as Day 3 where he carried a stack of 239,000. However, Chhabria’s run ended in Level 16 and he couldn’t cross the money line.
Read the complete story here.
In all, Team India posted seven scores over the past four weeks of WSOPE and Goenka tops the list with his sixth place finish in the €500 PLO that earned him €9,313 (₹7.85 Lakhs), while Dhaval Lachhwani finished 10th in the €1,100 Monster Stack NLHE for €6,949 (₹5.87 Lakhs).
Meanwhile, the Main Event has narrowed down to the final 50 contenders and topping the field is the 2013 WSOP Main Event winner, Ryan Riess (4,233,000). The money was reached after Russia’s Viktor Taranenko was eliminated on the money bubble in 82nd place. Taranenko had won his seat in the event through a €0.01 satellite on partypoker but returned empty-handed.
The remaining top 81 players are assured a min-cash of €15,074 and its going to be another intense day on the poker tables as the 50 finalists resume play.
Another big attraction of the 2018 WSOPE was the €100K LEON’s High Roller event. The fast paced event saw big high stakes names in the mix, among a total of 33 entrants. Eventually it was Ivan Leow who emerged at the top to claim his career-first WSOPE title and an impressive € 1,251,455 in prize money.
Read the complete story here.
Earlier, the €2,200 PLO 8-Handed was won by Anson Tsang, while Michael Addamo took down the €25,500 Super Highroller Series 25K even as Martin Kabrhel shipped the €100,000 Super High Roller.
Poker pro and commentator Bernard Lee shipped the $400 NLHE (1-Day) at the 2018 World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) Harvey’s Lake Tahoe and won his second WSOPC ring for $11,456.
Read the complete story here.
The Season 5 WPTDeepStacks Pittsburgh Main Event started on October 25 at the Rivers Casino and was taken down by Texas native Dustin Foster, who won his maiden WPTDeepStacks title, along with posting his career-best live cash of $87,366, which includes a $3,000 championship prize package.
Read the complete story here.
35-year-old poker pro Joe Ambrogi bested a 268-strong entry field in the $250 NLHE Re-Entry at the 2018 World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) series at Harvey’s Lake Tahoe and claimed his career-first WSOPC gold ring and $13,132 in prize money.
Read the complete story here.
Tony Tran joined the WPT Champions Club after he fielded across 356 entries in the World Poker Tour (WPT) Bestbet Bounty Scramble Main Event and won a top prize worth $341,486, which includes a $15,000 worth seat into the Tournament of Champions.
Read the complete story here.
The 2018 World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) Horseshoe Hammond drew in a total of 1,094 entries, creating a prize pool of $1,657,410. Topping the field was Zachery Schneider, who won his second WSOPC gold ring, while also banking a winner’s payday of $302,492.
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.