WPT India: Kanishka Samant Ships 20K Kickoff NLH For ₹9.12 Lakhs

Kanishka Samant
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  • PG News November 9, 2017
  • 3 Minutes Read

The largest and most luxurious casino of India, Deltin Royale in Goa is currently abuzz with excitement as its playing host to the first-ever World Poker Tour (WPT) India. The inaugural 20K Kickoff NLH concluded last night and was a resounding success attracting 195 entries clearly evidencing that players were starving for such live extravaganza in the country.

The event saw the top 22 places raking in their share of the ₹36,87,840 prize pool with the winner claiming the ₹9.12 Lakhs up top. The event came to close on the final Day 2 with Mumbai’s Kanishka Samant (cover image) emerging victorious.

Several big guns flew in to attend the inaugural event with the likes of Adda52 Team Pros Kunal Patni and Amit Jain, Adda52 Celebrity Pro Minissha Lamba along with other notables such as Nitesh Baliyan, Sharad Rao, Zarvan Tumboli, Mayank Agarwal, Eka Vedantham, Jasven Saigal, Mani Singh and Dhaval Mudgal. The event also attracted international pros like Singapore’s Bryan Huang and Daniel Weinman. Huang (former PokerStars pro) is a Hold’em specialist with lifetime live cashes totaling to $1,281,495 while Weinman boasts of $2,810,266 in live earnings.

Playing alongside Day 2 of the opening event was Day 1 of WPT India Superstack NLH Event. The second event of the series drew a strong field of 285 players and at the end of the day only 31 remain. Chandigarh’s Sumit Sapra bagged an overwhelming lead and will start Day 2 with 614,000.

 

20K Kickoff NLH Recap

As expected the field was full of pros and enthusiasts alike and with a renowned pro taking down the opening event, it will be interesting to see how the remainder of the series pans out.

Notables who were in thick of action on Day 1 of the event but couldn’t make it in the money included Nishant Sharma, Adda52 pro Kunal Patni, Adda52 celebrity pro Minissha Lamba, Ankit Wadhawan, Rishabh Jain, Mani Singh, Shashwat Agarwal, Sirjan Singh, Arjan Chaddha and Eka Vedantham among many others.

The money bubble was Hitesh Punjabi whose couldn’t hold against Abhinav Jain’s as the latter flopped a set to seal the pot.

As soon as the money bubble burst, players were seen getting knocked out left, right and center till the 9-handed final table formed which played out on the final day 2. These included Maksim Kameneu (11thplace), Bhanu Prakash K (12th place), Randeep (13th place),Daniel Weinman (14th place), Rakesh Ramesh Bhagat (15th place), Gaurav Jain (16th place), Bhargav Bopanna (17th place), Abhinav Jain (18th place), C Gautham Raju (19th place), Abhishek Malik (20th place), Hardik Shah (21st place) and Rakesh Sharma (22nd place).

The last elimination of the day was Pawan Jain who bubbled the final table exiting in 10th place. Jain opened and got one caller in Alok Bhatt and it was two-way on the flop . Jain checked his option and Bhatt announced all-in holding for the nut flush draw. Jain called tabling for a weaker flush draw and couldn’t catch any help as the turn and completed the board.

Incidentally, Vinay S Kariputtakalank also got eliminated before play ended on Day 1 to leave the table 8-handed which played down to a winner the next day.

Final Table Chip Counts

1. Kanishka Samant – 386,000
2. Alok Bhatt – 378,000
3. Srinivas B – 375,000
4. Ankush Aryan – 328,00
6. Zarvan Tumboli – 176,000
7. Neelakanthan Murli – 74,000
8. Mayank Agarwal – 21,000

 

Final Table Recap

Early on next day, short stacked Mayank Agarwal became the first elimination of the day after he got it in with 8x 7x and was looked up by Srinivas B (Qx 5x) and another player in the big blind. On the flop of Qx 4x 9x, Srinivas led out and the big blind folded. Mayank didn’t get any help on the7x turn and Jx river and was sent packing.

Next to fall was Zarvan Tumboli, courtesy the eventual champion Samant. Samant opened and Tumboli jammed holding Ace King only to be called by the pocket jacks of Samant. Jacks held and Tumboli exited the event in seventh place.

Neelkanthan Murali followed Tumboli soon thereafter with Samant once again doing the damage. Murali open shoved holding Ax 8x and got called by Samant who tabled Ax Jx. Murali didn`t get any help from the community cards and busted in sixth place.

Samant was merciless and not much later he knocked Ankush Aryan in fifth place when Aryans’s three-of-a-kind was no good against Samant’s full boat.

Alok Bhatt was the next to fall from the table with Samant looking invinsible. Bhatt was short and got it in with Kx 5x only to get called by Samant who tabled pocket three’s. No help for Bhatt on the board and he exited in fourth place.

Srinivas B was quite mostly on the final table but then swiftly changed gears to eliminate Sahil Chutani in third place. Srinivas opened and Sahil called to see the flop which got checked through. On the turn, all the chips went in with Chutani’s up against Srinivas’ superior . The river further provided the nut flush to Srinivas and he took down the hand busting Chutani in the process to set up the heads-up battle against Samant.

Samant started with an overwhelming chip lead and it didn’t him take much time to close it out in style; he eliminated Srinivas to add the opening event title of WPT India to his growing list of victories.

Kanishka Samant
Kanishka Samant

Final Table Results (INR)

1. Kanishka Samant – ₹9,12,000

2. Srinivas B – ₹6,08,500

3. Sahil Chutani – ₹3,80,100

4. Alok Bhatt – ₹3,04,200

5. Ankush Aryan – ₹2,48,900

6. Neelkanthan Murali – ₹2,02,800

7. Zarvan Tumboli – ₹1,65,900

8. Mayank Agarwal – ₹1,29,100

Keep following the latest updates from WPT India right here on PokerGuru!

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