IPC June 2011 event roundup

One of the best times to visit Goa outside the typical year-end celebrations of Christmas and New Year, is the monsoon season. The beaches, and the shacks on them, might be deserted but the rain adds a fresh, inviting look to all the natural greenery in this state which makes it wonderfully serene. But the rain-enhanced scenery is last thing on the poker player’s mind when he or she visits Goa. It's all about poker and there’s no bigger brand out there to test one’s skills than at the India Poker Championship. The seventh edition of the Championship took place from 2^nd – 5^th June 2011 in the card room onboard Casino Royale, the biggest off-shore casino located in the Goan state capital of Panaji (or Panjim). The four day event would see several different buy-ins with the biggest one being saved for Saturday night. 

Day 1 was the 6k Double Bubble (DB) which was the opening tournament for the event. The DB features two prizepools – one, the main cash prizepool and the other is a seat prizepool. A small portion of every buy-in would go towards seats into Saturday night’s 20k tournament and in this case 1 seat would be awarded per 20 players. Players would have to battle their way to first bust the money bubble and subsequently add to their earnings with an additional prize in the form of a 20k Big Game seat. By the time late registrations got done, there were exactly 100 players battling for the title and the top 5 finishers would also receive that seat into the Saturday night tournament. The eventual winner of the IPC 6k Double Bubble was Goa local, Husain Lakda who took home about INR 135,000 for his efforts. Prabhat Saini, who was runner-up in a previous IPC event made it two for two with his 2^nd place finish. Chetas Shah (whose day job is that of a DJ… wait a minute!) made sure he got the means to buy a lot more vinyl with the green he won as a result of his 3^rd place finish. 

Prabhat Saini (2nd), Husain Lakda (1st) & Chetas Shah (3rd)

Day 2 was expected to have more players since it was the beginning of the weekend with the 10k Friday Night Tournament kicking things off. By the end of the 2^nd level, there were more than 100 players and the final count at the end of late entries, one level later, would be 104 players. The action was a bit slow in the early and middle stages but then the pressure of the blinds stated to kick in and there were a lot of moves made by the short and intermediate stacks. The final table of the 10k had several new faces. It was the first IPC final table for some of the regular players like Ketan Kurani and Amar Katharani. On the other hand past winners like Amit Jain and Farukh Shaikh once again showed why they are regarded for their consistency. It was great to also see a lady at the final table in the form of Padmasree Bhakta as well as IPC tournament newbies like Haroun Mirza, Vikram Singh and Sumit Asrani. In a massive pot, Amit Jain who was one of the bigger stacks on the table, picked up TT which managed to hold up against Singh’s AK. From thereon it was no turning back as Jain would make a clean sweep and pick up the IPC 10k Friday Night Tournament’s title in headsup battle with Farukh Shaikh. And rounding off the Top 3, a very commendable 3^rd place finish for Padmasree Bhakta. 

Padmasree Bhakta (3rd), Amit Jain (1st) & Farukh Shaikh (2nd)

Day 3 was the big one or in this case the 20k BIG Game! The big money to be won would be at this featured event of the weekend. The last edition of the IPC in June saw 94 runners participate in this tournament and this time too it would not be an easy task as the final count of players was 91. In about 6 hours, the field was whittled down to a third once again several familiar faces made their presence felt at the tables. Prabhat Saini was hoping to make another solid run to back up his 2^nd place finish in the 6k Double Bubble on Thursday Night. While Saini was unable to go the distance, his opponent and the eventual winner of the DB, Husain Lakda made it to another final table and was hoping for a dream weekend of winning more than one IPC title. The ladies were having none of it and once again we had another female player in Mubina Rattonsey make the last 9. It was going to be a cracker of a final table with the very first hand played being a Royal Flush for Stanley DaCosta who knocked out Varad Patil as a result. Stanley would knock out one more player, Navin James in the very next hand. It seemed like the big hands would not stop as Sumit Sapra hit quads with his JJ to knock out Husain Lakda and Arash Farsi in a double elimination! Stanley and Sumit finished in 6^th and 5^th while Mubina Rattonsey was hanging on gamely doubling up through Rajeev Raut and then knocking out Hemant Arora in 4th. She then finished off Rajeev Raut in 3^rd place to go heads up against Bangalore’s Roshan Mampilly. That battle did not last more than a few hands as Mubina’s AQ went on to clinch the IPC 20k Big Game title for her. A superb performance by the first ever female winner of an IPC tournament, Mubina Rattonsey! Incidentally the Rattonsey household will add a second 20k Winner’s Medallion on their mantle as Mubina’s husband, Sameer Rattonsey won the same title in the April edition of the Championship. 

Roshan Mampilly (2nd), Mubina Rattonsey (1st) & Rajeev Raut (3rd)

Day 4 featured the final event of the weekend which was the IPC 12k Headhunters on Sunday evening. This was the only event of the weekend which allowed players to make multiple buy-ins in the form of re-entries. The re-entry period was for the first hour of the tournament and the format tends to make players a bit more aggressive than usual in trying to build a big stack for the later stages. The Headhunters, as the name suggests, is a bounty tournament where every knockout fetches a player INR 2000! By the end of late entries, there were a total of 78 players who would do battle to take home the title. It was a 10-handed final table although only 8 places paid out. It was Delhi’s Tanuj Moorjani who knocked out 2 players in a single hand and ensured that he along with the remaining 7 players would go home with a share of the spoils. And while players from the rest of the country fell by the wayside, it was the three lads from down South who kept the Bangalore flag waving high! Abhishek Goindi, Krishna SM and Aneesh Dabral were the final 3 and that’s the order they finished in with Abhishek taking home the IPC 12k Headhunters title. A long overdue victory for Abhishek who has put in some terrifically consistent performances which will no doubt see him at the top of the India Player of the Year (IPOY) leaderboard.

Aneesh Dabral (3rd), Abhishek Goindi (1st) & Krishna SM (2nd)

A fantastic four days of poker came to an end and what a weekend it was for the India Poker Championship! Great fields, fantastic prizepools and a bunch a new winners including the first ever female winner of an IPC. As players made their way back to their hotels or to the airport to catch the early flights, travel plans were already being made for the next edition of the Championship which will take place from 4^th – 7^th August 2011. More information can be found on the website – www.indiapokerchampionship.com

See you in August!

IPC April 2011 event roundup

Tom had this problem of getting up late in the morning and was always late for work. His boss was mad at him and threatened to fire him if he didn't do something about it. So Tom went to his doctor who gave him a pill and told him to take it before he went to bed. Tom slept well and in fact beat the alarm in the morning by almost two hours. He had a leisurely breakfast and drove cheerfully to work.
"Boss", he said, " The pill actually worked!"
"That's all fine" said the boss, " But where were the hell were you yesterday??"

And that, all ye poker faithful, is exactly how late I am writing this particular trip report for the April edition of the India Poker Championship. Due apologies to all the readers who take the time to visit this blog to get some information about the recently concluded event and found none for April. There are no excuses and I'll keep this post short and sweet just to make sure a record has been kept of what has been an exceptional event by our standards. And with that let's just dive straight into it...

Day 1 was the IPC 6k Double Bubble (DB) tournament, a new introduction which replaced the customary 5k Freezeout tournament which would usually take place on Thursday evening. the concept of the DB is simple - a small portion of the buy-in is set asides towards a seat prizepool so for every 20 players, one player would get a seat into Saturday night's 20k Big Game! The IPC directors were looking to provide players, especially the smaller stakes players, a chance to compete in the bigger tournaments. The name Double Bubble arises from the fact that participating players need to bust the first bubble to make the money and the subsequent bubble to score a seat into the 20k Big Game. It seemed that the new tournament went down well with players in the run-up to the event from feedback received through our online mediums. And finally on Thurday evening, a massive 123 players took part in the inaugural IPC 6k Double Bubble! Action was fast and furious and eventually it was Yogendra Saboo from Mumbai who took down the title with Nipun Kumar from Hyderabad and Shreyabha Pandey also from Mumbai taking 2nd and 3rd respectively.

Shreyabha Pandey (3rd), Yogendra Saboo (1st) & Nipun Kumar (2nd)

 Day 2's turnout was expected to be pretty good given the large number of players that had attended the opening event of the weekend. Also the second tournament i.e. the IPC 10k Friday Night Tournament is the classic Freezeout which really starts off the weekend so many players were expected to fly in after work that evening. And so it was... with a total of 109 players taking part in this weekend kickoff tournament. Bollywood was in the house once again with Harman Baweja and Minissha Lamba participating in this tournament. The tournament had just crossed the 6 hour mark when the final table gathered around to play down for the title. It was a long, protracted headsup battle between Philip Raju and Ramu Mahto. However Philip was on the hottest streak of his life and so it came as no surprise when he eventually triumphed against a very determined Mahto and took home the IPC 10k Friday Night tournament title. Good performances by Ramu Mahto and a commendable 3rd place finish for tournament regular Vikram Verma.

Vikram Verma (3rd), Philip Raju (1st) & Ramu Mahto (2nd)

 Day 3 was the featured tournament of the weekend - the IPC 20k BIG Game! Everyone was vying to win the biggest prizepool of this Saturday night tournament and in fact there were a number of players who had flown in to participate in just this one tournament! This evening too saw a record-breaking field of 94 players, the first time ever that there's been over 90 players in a buy-in of this magnitude. That magical 3-figure mark is not too far away from the look of things. Repeat final tables for Nipun Kumar and Vikram Verma whilst we had a past IPC title winner in Sameer Rattonsey also looking to add another Winner's Medallion to his existing 10k one (from IPC June 2010). And it seemed like the dream might come true when he made it into 3-way action with Anish Dedhia (Mumbai) and Boston native Ian Moskowitz. Anish gets eliminated by Sameer when his A 4 is bested by Sameer's A 10. Headsup between Ian and Sameer lasts for exactly one hand when Ian who hits bottom pair moves all-in which is snapcalled by Sameer who hit his Ace. No more help for Ian on the board and Sameer wins the IPC 20k Big Game! A superb finish for him coming on the back of making the previous evening's 10k final table as well.

Ian Moskowitz (2nd), Sameer Rattonsey (1st) & Anish Dedhia (3rd)

Day 4 is always a bit of a downer for the Crew. It's the last tournament of the weekend and the long wait till the next edition tends to give us the blues. But excitement levels were palpable because Sunday night would see the introduction of the 2nd new format of the IPC weekend. This was the 12k Headhunters tournament which was a Bounty + Re-entry format. So a player would receive INR 2000 per knockout and for the first one hour re-entries were allowed but only if the player lost his/her entire chipstack. So they would re-enter as a 'new' player altogether. This, the IPC Directors felt, would reduce the shovefest that rebuy tournaments invariably tend to become. The final count of players in the Headhunters was 93 including re-entries. Belgian pro Mihail Stoykov who'd been making waves recently on the Indian poker circuit showed exactly why his game is regarded so highly by taking down the IPC 12k Headhunters title. Anosh Patel from Dubai put up a good fight for his first runner-up finish and Harman Baweja finished a commendable 3rd.

Anosh Patel (2nd), Mihail Stoykov (1st) & Harman Baweja (3rd)

And that was it for the April edition of the India Poker Championship. The next is set to take place from 2nd - 5th June 2011. Our thanks and appreciation to all the players who turned up for the event. We hope you enjoyed yourselves and look forward to seeing you at our next. As I say 'Adios amigos' and take your leave, here's a final look at the big winners of this particular IPC.