We followed the same routine of the past few days and headed to the casino at about 6pm. We expected a dip in the numbers for the game tonight for two reasons - A) the buy-in had gone up and that would deter a lot of people from playing and B) it was a dry day for 3 days starting today. We hoped however that people would take a shot in the satellites prior and try to get their seats into the main event. The satellites have been quite the hit with our players and we are sure that going ahead this will be an integral part of our events. When we got to the jetty, there were about 10-12 people waiting for the feeder boat to take them to the main ship. Seeing the lesser number of players at the jetty confirmed our suspicions about the reduced number of participants for the final event. Day 1 and Day 2 of the IPC had garnered 60 and 58 players respectively and we were hoping that at least 35-40 players would show up for the 20k game under the circumstances.
The IPC Winner's Medallion
Eventually 16 players started playing the satellite and it was then that our Tournament Director Craig Wildeman approached the IPC directors with an idea to generate some more excitement and buzz as well as up the number of entries. Craig wanted to run a Single Hand Satellite for an entry into the main event. So players are dealt just the 1 hand and the best hand takes it all. In case of a tie, another hand would be dealt to the tied players to determine a winner. There were a total of 3 seats that were given away through this satellite and it was exciting for everyone, players and spectators both gathering around and shouting out what cards they wanted the dealer to deal. It was a nice little 5 minute buzz for everyone.
Finally we got down to business. There were a total of 27 entrants in the IPC 20k Freezeout. However as the game started Craig mentioned that a few players had called in to say they were getting delayed due to the Hindu carnival, Shigmotsav which was causing some traffic issues, thereby delaying them from coming to the venue on time. Eventually there would be a total of 37 players who would do battle to be the IPC 20k champion. The action was tight to begin with although once again we lost a player within the first 2 hands of the tourney. As the action went on, we had a quick chat with Craig about the blind levels. Over the past couple of days, we received feedback that the blinds levels took at harsh jump after 500-1000 and while it is obvious that this point will be reached at some point in any tournament, we decided to tweak things a bit. We believed increasing the time levels would compensate for the jump in levels and as suggested by Craig, the clock would be increased to 25 minute from the existing 20 minutes once action went into the 1000-2000 level and beyond. After Craig's announcement regarding the change in structure we saw many players nod approvingly at the incorporated change.
The action then began to increase rapidly and players started to drop out like flies. At the end of the 4th hour of play, we were down to the final table. Phil S, our 10k Tourney winner from the previous night narrowly missed out on making the final table. However it was a back-to-back final table appearance for Keshav S who had played some solid poker to get to the final table. This tournament had 5 payout positions as a result of the reduced number of participants from the previous night. We finally got down to the money when we lost our bubble boy, Rohit. The rejoicing was short-lived as the focus now was to secure the big bucks and the IPC Winner's Medallion.
Half the table namely Bharat, Kehsav and SV were the the big stacks with only a few blinds separating them and similarly the remaining 3 short-stacked players were Ricky, Tarun and Rohit. Soon enough the inevitable happened and the big stacks got heavier and then it was 3 way action between Bharat, Keshav and SV with Keshav who was on the short stack. Hands got traded back and forth before Keshav's AK gets brutalized by SV's call with a Q9 and he hits two pairs Q and 9 to get knocked out in 3rd place. Keshav's performance like Nikhil Jain (our 5k champ) is quite noteworthy as both gentlemen made back-to-back final tables and had a healthy pay-day for their efforts.
Heads-up battle lasted for no more than 15 hands. Halfway through those hands SV got crippled by a bad beat when his top pair on the flop got beat by Bharat's one card flush which hit on the river! SV tried valiantly to make a comeback by winning a few pots but luck wasn't on his side when his QQ was called by Bharat's A4 and the board threw up a an A on the flop and eventually opened out a straight for Bharat. And with that hands, loud cheers went up as Bharat.S became the winner of the inaugural IPC 20k Freezeout tournament. Along with a very healthy share of the pool, Bharat was also given an IPC Winner's Medallion, a bottle of French champagne, a DVD of Rounders and an IPC coffee mug. Many congratulations to our IPC 20k winner Bharat S along with runners-up positions for SV and Keshav Sethia.
Close-up of the IPC Winner's Medallion
The team headed to the hotel room to have a few drinks and reflect on what has been quite a successful event for us. While we had hoped for slightly higher numbers, we can't complain about how well things turned out. If there was one thing which disappointed us, it was the attitude of registered players who were no-shows and did not communicate the same to us. Perhaps a lot of them are still unconvinced about the authenticity of the championship and the genuine intent of the IPC organisers to make it the poker tournament event for India and indeed the Indian sub-continent.
We do hope that those who did make the effort and came all the way to Goa from across the country had an enjoyable and exciting poker experience. It is because of these players who will spread the word that tournaments like ours will grow exponentially and cause India to be the next place on the world poker map to boom. On a personal front, while I didn't get to play any cards, I have enjoyed myself thoroughly by writing these accounts for the readers of this blog as well as updating our followers on Facebook and Twitter.
Till the next edition...
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