IPC Feb - 10/2/2011 - 5k Freezeout

The first event of the year is always an exciting one and with the IPC 5k kicking off proceedings for 2011 with its February event there was a lot of anticipation among players especially after the stupendous success of the last edition in December. The run up to the event though was not as smooth as we expected it to be… About a week or so prior to the event, there were some issues faced by our host venue Casino Royale with regards to some licensing matters. As a result of which the casino was shut down by the authorities for a day or so. While we weren’t immediately concerned, there was a twinge of wariness which crept in given how close this happened to our first event of 2011. 

As Indians we’re great believers in karma and good luck and this was not necessarily the most auspicious of signs to begin the year off with.

 Fortunately the matter was sorted and the poker room was back in action barely 48 hours after all this went down. There were a lot of queries from players especially those involved in the stock market as the stock of the company owning the casino took a bit of a pounding upon news of the casino operations being affected. A flurry of phone calls and emails were exchanged between us and the players as well as the card room and soon the matter was at rest. And so soon after the day was upon us and come the evening of the 10^th we looked forward to meeting the players. As is now typical of our Thursday tournaments, the card room was packed to capacity when we started with 100 seats being filled up. By the end of the Alternates round an hour later, the final count was 103. The start to the weekend was a good one after all and it was hoped that things would get only better as the tournament weekend progressed.

The action began fast and furious with eliminations taking place minutes into the tournament. Over the past many events done, the IPC tournaments have become better and smoother in operational terms and this was very evident from the way the tournament progressed with no hitches with regard to time. As the tournament clock hit the 5 hour mark, we were down to the final 2 tables.
There would be a 10-handed final and all places would not only make the money but also score points on the IPC Player of the Year leaderboard. About half an hour later, the final table took their seats to much fanfare and this is what the player list along with their chipstacks looked like:-

1.       Dhaval Mudgal – 47000
2.       Dheeraj Pulluru – 41000
3.       Srinivas Reddy – 35000
4.       Banotpal Chakraborty – 40000
5.       Aditya Sushant – 46000
6.       Mehernosh Captain – 35000
7.       Vikram Verma – 40000
8.       Praveen Tammana – 61000
9.       Prabeer  Nair – 123000
10.   Vitali Bezylava – 40000

As our tournament director Craig Wildman aptly put it, he had never seen a final table at any Indian tournament with so many closely matched stacks. Leading from the front with a superstack was, tournament regular and well known pro, Prabeer ‘Rotty’ Nair who was looking to make the moves and get people out in a hurry. His aggressive style did mean his stack taking a few swings. The only non-Indian at the table was the first to go. Vitali Bezylava played an aggressive and fearless game to get to the final table but could not get anything going and busted out in 10^th. His exit was followed by that of Dhaval Mudgal of Cardplayer India. Dhaval who had a good showing in the December Main Event was able to add some more points to his name in the POY race. Next to get busted were Srinivas Reddy and Praveen Tammana in 8^th and 7^th place respectively. Our 6^th place finisher was Mehernosh Captain who was followed out by Banotpal Chakraborty in 5^th place. Vikram Verma was the next to go in 4^th place and it was then time for the final 3 to battle it out for the title.

Seasoned pro Rotty Nair, IPC Champion Aditya Sushant and Hyderabad’s Dheeraj Pulluru were evenly matched in stacks when 3-way action began. Sushant, who was down to 100 chips right at the start of the tournament, had clawed his way back into the tournament making some superb plays and milking his big hands for all their worth. He did have more than his fair share of luck by getting lucky a few times on the river and holding on for his tournament life. However the rub of the green does need to go your way if you have to outlast big fields and Aditya had it in spades. He and Rotty repeatedly got into hands and chips were moving back and forth between the two given their aggressive styles of play. Eventually though Aditya managed to best Rotty and knock him out in 3^rd place. It was then headsup between Dheeraj and Aditya which didn’t last too long. With a substantial chiplead Sushant put Dheeraj all in right away into the headsup battle which Dheeraj called looking relatively at ease when the cards were flipped over:-

Aditya Sushant – 10 2

vs

Dheeraj Pulluru – K J

A King in the window looked to make both the stacks equal but it seems Aditya’s got the luck of the devil at exactly the right time he needs it. Sure enough his Doyle Brunson hits the deuce on the river to knock out Dheeraj and seal the win! It was a rollercoaster ride for the India Poker Champion (website link) who managed to ride out an early near-disaster to come back and taking down the title. A commendable 2^nd place finish for Dheeraj who played solid on the final table to score a healthy payday. As far as Aditya Sushant is concerned he seems in a hurry to close down the POY race as this win puts more distance between his and the rest of the field. Everyone is now playing catch-up to this Chennai native who becomes the first ever player to win two titles at the IPC and that too in back-to-back editions!

More excitement coming up tomorrow with the IPC 10k Freezeout.
Stay tuned...

24 hours to go for the IPC and other news from the poker world

If there's one aspect of poker which excites me, well besides the game itself, it has to be the chance of traveling to different venues across the world. Between the IPC Crew, we've had the opportunity to play in destinations from Las Vegas to Macau to Goa of course and a few others in between. Vegas was once referred to as the gambling capital of the world. Obviously Macau in recent years has taken over that title in a big way but Vegas still remains the poker capital of the world. Every serious and semi-serious poker player, nevermind the stakes he plays at, wants to visit and play in Vegas. Not surprising as Sin City has a game pretty much around the clock to suit most appetites.

Speaking of traveling to different venues leads me to the opening topic of this post which is the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure or the PCA as it's more commonly known. This event takes place in the beautiful Atlantis Resort located in the even more beautiful Bahamas. I don't know about you, but I am a beach guy. Nothing like stretching your legs out on a lounger with an ice-cold brew by your side as you allow the tranquil sites and sounds of the ocean to soothe your worries away :)
Besides these attractions, poker pros also descend upon the Atlantis for their annual Caribbean pilgrimage to play in what is the second largest event on the planet after the WSOP. This time's PCA has a total of 48 events and what's got the pros really excited is the sheer variety in the games offered. There are many Omaha and Stud games and there's big money 8 game tournaments happening too. While Texas Holdem is undoubtedly the game of choice for millions, the pros both young and seasoned alike, are relishing the prospect of flexing their versatility across these not-so-popular poker variants. Eventually at the end of the PCA, it was Galen Hall who took down the Main Event win after defeating a massive 1560 player field. Already having had an impressive set of online cashes, the 24 year old American pro takes home his biggest offline cash of about $2.3 million!

And pro reminds me of a sorta forgotten one in the form of Chris Moneymaker. The man, whose win at the 2003 WSOP Main Event, is credited with boosting the popularity of global poker hasn't really done anything noteworthy since his big win seven years ago. With personal problems relating to marriage taking a turn for the worse in the meantime really hasn't given the man the opportunity to focus on his game. However he seems to be on a comeback trail of sorts now - the marriage seems to be going strong, he's got 2 little daughters and it seems to be having a positive affect on his game as well. After a long time, Moneymaker made a deep finish, busting out in 11th place in the PCA Main Event. While a final table appearance or a win might have improved his standing some more, it's safe to say that Chris Moneymaker is likely not complaining.

And from one corner of the Caribbean to another beautiful part of the world - Melbourne, Australia and specifically the Crown Casino which hosts the Aussie Millions. The Millions has grown into one of the premier destinations for poker professionals in the world with a large number of events and big prizepools on offer. This time's Main Event had a first place prize of $2 million and the man who ensured that the title stayed in the homeland was 68 year old Adelaide native, David Gorr. The long time pro who also works as a computer analyst during the day, credits his fitness (as a result of his daily running) to be the secret of his success in outlasting a field of 721 players who each chipped in with a buy-in of $10,000. Of course a couple of bad beats, in that marathon 4+ hour headsup battle against English pro James Keys, no doubt contributed in helping Gorr take home the big one.

From offline to online, I'm quite excited about the release of Full House Poker on the Xbox gaming console. While there have been plenty of poker video games created for various platforms, they really haven't been up to the mark. The previews suggest that Microsoft is betting big on their new release and I'm hoping that I finally get to dust off the old Xbox and get it going for the game we all love. And from game releases to movie releases, the next big poker or more to the point poker-related movie is the Brad Pitt starrer Cogan's Trade about a professional enforcer who has to investigate a heist of a poker game. The confirmed male cast is like the who's who of macho roles with the likes of Javier Bardem, Mark Ruffalo, James Gandolfini, Sam Rockwell and Casey Affleck. This, along with Rounders 2, are like the two delicious poker movie morsels which poker and movie fans alike are waiting for with loads of anticipation.

Moving onto the small screen, some sad news - Gabe Kaplan will no longer be in the commentary booth of High Stakes Poker. The bossmen of the GSN network on which the show runs, have roped in comedian Norm MacDonald to take over from Kaplan.
In my mind, there are only 3 combos as far as poker commentary is concerned - the ESPN WSOP team of Lon McEachern and Norman Chad, GSN High Stakes' AJ Benza and Gabe Kaplan and of course the ever immortal poker voice of Mike Sexton who along with Vince Van Patten co-commentate the WPT events. Humour is a huge part of poker commentary along with analysis and Kaplan has one of the driest wits that I've ever seen/heard/enjoyed. Not to mention his own experience as a cash game player which he brought into the commentary booth and even took to the felt in one of the seasons of High Stakes. While I do like Norm, Gabe's voice and wit will certainly be missed. Oh and High Stakes for its upcming 7th season intends to shoot in 3D! Imagine that! The cards are gonna come flying at you through the TV screen it seems :D

And finally as I race against the clock to finish this piece and head out to the airport to catch that flight to Goa, that usual mix of excitement and adrenaline has kicked in for the Feb IPC event. We've had a fantastic 2010 where we started small in March and built ourselves up to our big blowout event in December. There is a lot of pride in knowing that the India Poker Championship has done its bit towards growing 'the scene' and we hope for bigger and better things for 2011 as well staring with our first event for the new year.
And with that I have to say adios and the IPC Crew will see you all at the tables soon!

The Feb event, UB loses their top 2 and the Isildur1 'reveal'

Well now that the new year's hangover (oh Happy New Year to you too!) is well and truly behind us... unless you're one of those over-the-top degenerates :D it's time to look towards the fun stuff coming up for you, O poker player. The Feb edition of the India Poker Championship is all set to take place from 10th-13th February on board Casino Royale in Panjim, Goa. With the IPC Player of the Year (POY) started in December, there is a lot of interest in the leaderboard and many will look to break into it while those who already have will look to score more points and consolidate their positions in the POY race. Here's what the Feb 2011 schedule looks like:-

• 10th Feb - IPC 5k Freezeout
• 11th Feb - IPC 10k Freezeout
• 12th Feb - IPC 20k Freezeout
• 13th Feb - IPC 5k Freezeout

As of now our India Champion Aditya Sushant is on the top of the leaderboard and given that he intends to play all events possibly, he will be the man to beat. That said, many of the known faces who have not scored any points thus far will be looking to make their mark on the event. Besides bragging rights of being the POY, there is also an IPC sponsorship worth INR 1,00,000 for the eventual POY of the 2010-2011 season.
To register for the Feb edition you can visit our website at www.indiapokerchampionship.com or alternately you can also register at this link.

Some interesting bits of news from the other side of the globe. The first is the departure of Phil Hellmuth from his primary and long-time sponsor Ultimate Bet which came as a bit of a surprise to a few people even though there had been plenty of rumors circulating for a few weeks prior to the official announcement when the Poker Brat showed at an event without the yellow UB logo branding on his clothing. Phil's departure was closely followed by another senior pro leaving the site - Annie Duke. While in recent times both players have been in the media more for their personal behaviour or their ugly clashes with other pros (here's some vitriol unloaded by Kid Poker), it cannot be denied that both, and waayyyy more so Hellmuth, have formidable reputations in the poker world. While I don't think UB will care too much about the loss of Duke, Phil Hellmuth's departure is definitely gonna put a dampener on things. All parties have played nice and wished each other well with UB saying its gonna focus on building a young team with the likes of Joe Sebok, Eric Baldwin, Maria Ho and others. Phil on the other hand is obviously in talks with lots of entities not in the least of which are other poker sites. He tweeted a day or two ago that he was heading into a meeting with Full Tilt. But most folks believe that Helmuth is too big a brand to be part of a team. He can provide every advantage to a potential sponsor by being the face of their brand. That said there are enough of rumors about Phil starting his own poker site which in my personal opinion seems a touch unlikely. Nothing to back that up... just a gut feeling.

The second piece of news is of course the much awaited reveal of Isildur1, the mysterious online sensation who played heavy stakes poker and was and down by millions across the course of his play! For a long time when those huge games were taking place on Full Tilt and PokerStars, the identity of this player remained unknown. As time went on, there was speculation about a young Swedish player named Viktor Blom being the anonymous Isildur1. That speculation turned into heated discussions and debates on various forums as weeks went by. At the time, Blom also started playing in live events and at a point in time, it was all but certain that Blom was indeed Isildur1. About a couple of weeks back, PokerStars announced that they had signed on the player known as Isildur1 and would reveal his true identity at one of their events in the coming weeks. That event was the PCA and the announcement happened this past Saturday and Isildur1 was indeed Viktor Blom or vice-versa if you like. By the time the 'great reveal' happened, there was no mystery so in the words of one of the forum posters, it was like, "going to a movie, the ending to which you already knew...". Still now that the news is official, his many fans can now follow (with any remaining doubts rested) Blom as he continues to operate a high stakes both online as well as on the felt.

I end this post by saying watch out for some excitement next week! There's a satellite planned in the run-up to the Feb event. We will giving seat packages so stay tuned to our Facebook profile and pages (1. 2) for more information.

IPC POY standings

Now that the December edition is behind us, the interesting thing (besides even more poker :) for players now is the leaderboard situation with the IPC POY. With two money finishes including the Main Event, it's India Champion Aditya Sushant who is sitting pretty at the top of the rankings. As far as cities are concerned, Mumbai is leading the pack with 6 out of the Top 10 from the nation's financial capital. Here's the Top 10 on the IPC Player of the Year leaderboard:-

Rank	Name	Points	Finishes
1	Aditya Sushant	936	2
2	Farukh Shaikh	700	1
3	Akash Malik	576	1
4	Amit Jain	560	1
5	Harman Baweja	480	1
6	Jan Hlobil	420	1
7	Avinash Rajpal	384	1
8	Dhaval Mudgal	350	1
9	Ricky Chopra	312	1
10	Hrishikesh Mundargi	288	1

To see the complete listing of the IPC Player of the Year rankings, click HERE.

And here's one of the IPC Directors closing out the tournament weekend with a round of thanks to a few people...





The next IPC edition is coming up from 10th-13th February 2011. To register for this event, visit our website at www.indiapokerchampionship.com or you can also register here - http://bit.ly/IPCRegister

Day 4 - IPC 5k Freezeout

The final event of the weekend was another 5k Freezeout. The organizers had mentioned there were requests in past events to add Sunday night to the tournament weekend for those folks who could stay back. Keeping that in mind and also to appeal to the smaller stakes player, the IPC 5k Freezeout was introduced for this December event. The action was very loosey-goosey as many players got their chips in with marginal hands. There were a few bad beats but most ended up paying the price with the loss of their tournament life. It seemed that players were more relaxed and willing to ‘gamble’ after the initial intensity of the first 3 days.  The tournament started a few minutes after 8:30pm with 80 initial runners. There were plenty of people waiting to get in and it looked like we would get another packed house. Eventually at the end of the late entries, there were 93 runners. The 3-figure mark could have been achieved but many of the players on the waiting list decided to head to the casino floor and didn’t make it back in time.

Several prominent names got knocked out before the end of the 4^th level including the India Poker Champion Aditya Sushant, Arjjun Singh and Rajesh Goyal. Main Event runner-up Farukh Shaikh and Dhaval Mudgal too got eliminated a couple of levels later. As the tournament progresses the number of bad beats seem to go up and most of these are accompanied by the elimination of players as well. 

Eventually we get the final table into place and here’s what it looked like:-

Champagne flowing amongst the money finishers at the final table

1. Raghav ‘Chilly’ Singh – 42,000
2. Satish – 37,000
3. Aditya ‘Intervention’ Agarwal – 96,000
4. Amith Guthi – 26,000
5. Kavin Shah – 35,000
6. Sachit – 56,000
7. Rajiv ‘Rocky’ Motwani – 59,000
8. Lawrence Sanjay – 58,000
9. Dr. B Ravichandra – 51,000 

Already dubbed as a rising young star of online poker, it was expected that Aditya ‘Intervention’ Agarwal would definitely make a final table at the IPC tournament weekend. However despite decent runs in the first three events, Intervention couldn’t quite make it through and was looking to make a serious dent in the last event of the weekend. With over a 70% lead in chips over the next player, Intervention was in a commanding position as he entered his first final table in the India Poker Championship. First elimination on the final table was Lawrence Sanjay who had quite the run coming into the final table knocking out several players. But his T T were no match for Dr. Ravi’s pair of Ladies. But the good doctor was unable to last long getting knocked out in 8^th place. Intervention who’d taken a huge beat against Satish earlier was now once again staring at elimination from his nemesis who’d made the call. A King on the flop for Satish and Aditya goes out in 7^th place. The man with the spiky hair, funky red shades and spicy name, Raghav ‘Chilly’ Singh was the next to go in 6^th place knocked out by Sachit. Rocky Motwani then busts out Satish in 5^th place and follows that up by eliminating Sachit in 4^th.

Our fantastic service staff at the Royale Card room

3-way action then ensues between Rocky, Amith and Kavin. Kavin with pocket Jacks then eliminates Amith who was holding A T. He spikes a J on the turn and this is enough to end Amith’s tournament run. Headsup between Kavin and Rocky goes on for a while with hands and smallish pots being traded. Rocky picks up a few pots in a row and then makes another push with A 3. This time Kavin decides to make the call and lips over A 8. The flop causes a lot of cheer from the Mumbai contingent as their boy Kavin hits trips on an 8 8 3 board. The turn throws up a 6 and it’s all over as the celebrations begin even as the river shows an inconsequential King. Kavish Shah is the IPC 5k winner and a commendable 2^nd place for Goa local and tournament regular Rocky.

Rocky Motwani, Kavin Shah and Amith Guthi

It was an action packed 4 days of intense tournament poker. With most tournaments crossing the 9 hour mark, players making the final table were battling not just mental but sheer physical fatigue as well! While some of the known names of the tournament circuit did not score across the event, we had the opportunity to observe several young and aggressive talents. All events from December will also award points to players towards the IPC Player of the Year rankings. India Poker Champion, Aditya Sushant is currently on top of the Leaderboard with the Main Event title as well as a points finish in the 10k event. While the points race has just begun, it will be interesting to see if he can hold onto to his lead. 

The next IPC event will take place from 10^th – 13^th February 2011.Visit our website at www.indiapokerchampionship.com to register or alternatively you can also click here to register - http://bit.ly/IPCRegister

Day 3 - IPC 25k Main Event

4th December is D-Day! This is the day there has been most anticipation about. Saturday night’s Main Event featured the biggest buy-in of the weekend at INR 25,000. The Main Event would also see the winner being crowned as the first ever India Poker Champion! In the past there have been big buy-in events in Casino Royale and other venues but the field for this particular tournament was expected to beat even the IPC’s previously existing record. On previous days, when players asked us about the expected turnout, we were cautiously optimistic saying over 60 would be good and we’d be very happy if we cross the 70 player mark. The eventual turnout of 87 players was quite simply mind-boggling! Several players came up to us and mentioned that they had never expected or seen a turnout like this!

Who will take home this beautiful trophy?

The Main Even had a deepstack structure which was a major point of attraction for tournament players. It also helped that there was a Minimum Guaranteed Prizepool of INR 10,00,000 which of course was almost doubled as a result of the huge turnout. Along with the IPC goodie bag, a beautiful customized folding poker table was also going to be given to the winner courtesy of Nagpur-based AddicT Poker Tables. In the early levels a big hand took place between the 5k winner Ricky Chopra (A A) and the online phenom Aditya ‘Intervention’ Agarwal (K K). The board had an A and a K which of course meant all the money went in and Ricky’s bullets held up with nothing further to help Intervention. Halfway into the tournament we see a slew of eliminations with names like Lawrence Sanjay, Rajesh Goyal, Harman Baweja and Gaurav Law busting out. A few levels later more knockouts in the form of Denny Tait, Anil Gulati and Sandeep Narayanan. Shortly into the 14^th Level with the tournament clock just under the 8 hour mark, tournament director Craig Wildman announces that we should forget the November 9 as we now have the India Poker Championship’s ‘December Nine’ and here’s the line-up:-

The start of the Main Event final table

1. Jan Hlobil – 69,000

2. Amit Jain – 98,000

3. Abhishek Goindi – 195,000

4. Bobbe Suri – 71,000

5. Prabeer Nair – 121,000

6. Dhaval Mudgal – 118,000

7. Rahul Melwani – 61,000 

8. Aditya Sushant – 58,000

9. Farukh Shaikh – 79,000

The first elimination of the final table was tournament regular Bobbe Suri. Bobbe who had a healthy stack entering the final table had one hand against Amit Jain whose pockets Jacks hit got a break on the river to hit trips against Bobbe’s K Q which had hit a K on the flop. This was a monster pot which left Bobbe severely shortstacked on just 2000 in chips. He did manage to quadruple up but got busted by Jan’s T T which sent Bobbe’s Q J off to the rails. A lot of the final table action was being driven by Aditya Sushant who was making a lot of plays and taking down many pots. His aggressive style also lost him some pots as well. A big hand he won against Prabeer 'Rotty' Nair all but knocked Rotty out. But Prabeer who was fresh off his recent trip from the tables at Macau showed exactly why he is such a respected name at the tables. Demonstrating remarkable patience and skill, he built his stack from a few chips into one of the big chip stacks. In the meanwhile Sushant (Q 6) rivers a straight to eliminate Rahul Melwani (K J ) in 8th position. One of the biggest pots of the night took place between Prabeer (A K) who had Amit Jain (A Q) dominated preflop but could only shake his head when a Q hit the flop and again on the turn to knock him out in 7^th. It was then the turn of the initial chip leader Abhishek Goindi who shoved with A 6 and was quickly called by Aditya Sushant (K T) once again. No love for Abhishek who exits in 6^th as Aditya makes top pair on the flop and follows that with Kings up when a T comes on the river.

Through all this Cardplayer India’s Dhaval Mudgal has playing patiently looking for a spot to commit all his chips into the pot and does so when he looks down to see A 4 suited and shoves. Its Aditya once again who calls with A Q. No help for Dhaval on the board and he exits from the Main Event in 5^th place. Aditya is on an absolute tear as he eliminates Pokerguru pro Jan Hlobil and Amit Jain in 4^th and 3^rd positions. A little bit of trivia about Amit Jain. He is actually the 2009 regional champion from the IPC’s local tournaments held in Mumbai. But this time the dream was not to be for Amit as Farukh Shaikh and Aditya Sushant go up against each other for the monster 1^st place prize money and the title of the first ever India Poker Champion. After a few hands not to mention a lot of drama, Aditya gets his chips in with a pair of 5s and Farukh decides to make the call for his tournament life with Jd 9d. The flop 8s 3d 5d giving Aditya trip 5s but Farukh is still in it with a flush draw and when the turn brings a 7 his chances improve with a gutshot possibility being added to the flush. A huge sweat for both players as the river drops a harmless 4 and Chennai-based Aditya Sushant is the new India Poker Champion! He played a very aggressive game and often times won the hand when he was behind. But modern poker is about aggression and Aditya was rewarded with Indian poker’s biggest prize for taking the risks that he did. A special mention for first runner-up Farukh who had been battling illness since he got into Goa even being hospitalized for a few hours on Day 1 – a commendable performance by Farukh who was played through the pain while being on some heavy medication. 

It's been an exhausting 10 hours of poker and still players from the tournament look keen to play some cash and head towards those tables. I guess the word 'fatigue' does not exist in their dictionary. For us, it has been a long night and we need a good bit of sleep to be in shape for the final tournament of the weekend.

Once again many congratulations to Aditya Sushant on his fantastic win as well as the other players who made it to the money.

Day 2 - IPC 10 Freezeout

The next day was the IPC 10k Freezeout which was expected to have a decent turnout. By the time the late entries got done, there were 100 players in the tournament! This was a record turnout across all tournaments held in Goa for a similar buy-in! The 10k tournament had an added buzz because we had a celebrity in the house in the form of Bollywood star Harman Baweja. Harman who was originally supposed to come only for the 25k Main Event the following evening had decided to show up a day earlier and get suitably warmed up by playing in tonight's 10k event. 

Players waiting for the 10k tournament to begin

The evening didn't start well for the previous evening’s 5k winner Ricky Chopra. He got knocked in the 2^nd level itself when his flopped straight get hammered by his opponent’s turned full house. Heartbreak for the genial Ricky who was hoping to make another deep run. Other prominent names to get get knocked out in the early stages – Rajesh Goyal (June 20k winner), Farukh Shaikh, Prabhat Saini (June 10k 2nd place) and Sameer Rattonsey (June 10k winner). It seemed that the star from the silver screen wanted to prove a point or two on the green felt as Harman Baweja started off the final table as the chipleader and here’s what the rest of table looked like:-

TD Craig Wildman making notes for his final table commentary

1. Harman Baweja – 161,000
2. Aditya Sushant – 27,000
3. Girish Ganganna – 32,000
4. Vishwanath Murugappan – 88,000
5. Kavish Kukreja – 61,000
6. Umesh – 45,000
7. Hrishikesh ‘Rosh’ Mundargi – 108,000
8. Akash Malik – 82,000
9. Avinash Rajpal – 78,000
10. Ali Haq – 66,000

The short stack at the table, Aditya is the first to go after his pocket 6s run into Rosh’s Cowboys. After taking a few hits and getting reduced to just one 1000 chip, it was soon Vishwanath’s turn to exit in 9^th place courtesy Akash Malik. Girish and Umesh are the next two to go in 8^th and 7^th taken out by Avinash and Rosh respectively. Our repeat final tablist from Day 1 Kavish made an impressive run again in a 100 player field to make it out in 6^th place. The big chipleader at the start of the final table, Harman also made his presence felt at the table by knocking out Ali in 5^th position. Down to 4-way action and each of these players would be taking home a minimum of one lac for their efforts. Rosh was the first to get eliminated when Harman (KK) hits the stone cold nuts on a flop of K 2 2! 

Avinash Rajpal (3rd), Akash Malik (1st) and Harman Baweja (2nd)

Harman continues his knockout run when his A K busts out Avinash’s 8 T. It then got down to headsup between Akash Malik and Harman Baweja. There were lots of hands which shifted the chip lead frequently between the two. Eventually both players get it in with Akash holding A 7 against Harman’s K Q. With no help on the board, Harman is knocked out in 2^nd and Akash Malik from Delhi is the winner of the IPC 10k Freezeout. We got to see some great poker from both players but eventually it was Akash who managed to get the better of Harman. A superb 3-figure turnout of players made this event an exciting one with a very hefty prizepool as well. Fingers crossed for the Main Event which will take place tomorrow. The Crew would be extremely happy if we cross 65 players coz that would make it a worthy field for a Championship battle. 

Till tomorrow...