Ankit Turkhud Wins Inaugural NWOS Event for ₹2.75 Lakhs, Spartan Gladiator Race Champion Pranay Kapoor Makes Runner-Up Finish

The New World of Sports Club (NWOS) inaugural ₹22,000 NLH tournament at Pune on the May Day weekend reached a thrilling finale, with Ankit Turkhud (cover image) winning the event for a sum of ₹2,75,000 and his first title, after a four-way deal. An ecstatic Ankit later stated, “My first win, feels awesome! Hope for more to come. I have been playing poker for the past 5 years. The first title to take it down, can’t feel better than this! Special thanks to NWOS and Team Spartan.”

Pranay Kapoor, who has already won a trip to Las Vegas for the 2016 World Series of Poker (WSOP) in the Spartan Gladiator Race in March this year, made a second place finish, collecting INR 2,45,000 for his efforts.

The 3-day event had two entry flights and several regular pros, such as PGOL Main Event winner Griboshin Vellanthrov, Kanishk Samant, Jasven Saigal, Maria Kirloskar, Arsh Grover and Shravan Chhabria, as well as Rajeev Kanjani and Amin Rozani of the Indian Poker Championship (IPC) could be seen in the field.

Day 1A saw a total of 18 entries and only seven survived to Day 2. On Day 1B there were 26 unique entries and six re-entries, with only 15 remaining for Day 2.

Final Table Recap

The final day began with the 22 survivors taking their seats. By the time an unofficial final table of 10 players was reached, Tushar Bharati was leading with 349,000 and Pranay close behind with 324,000 in chips. Eventual winner Ankit had the second smallest stack of 42,300.

Top 10 Chip Counts

1. Shravan Chhabria – 194,000
2. Pranay Kapoor – 192,000
3. Tushar Bharati – 137,000
4. Rahul Sharma – 97,400
5. Alok Pawar – 86,800
6. Maitrayee Vaidya – 71,200
7. Vaibhav Damle – 69,000
8. Jugal – 50,300
9. Ankit Tirkhud – 42,300
10. Karan – 40,600

After the bubble burst on Alok Pawar, the final seven were in the money with the min-cash being ₹50,000 and all eyes on the top prize of ₹3.3 Lakhs.The bubble hand saw Alok open shove with 40k and Shravan called from button. Alok had pocket 6’s, against Shravan’s10’s. The flop rolled out Eight-Jack-Seven giving hope to Alok. But the Ace on the turn and the river with a Jack wrote another story and Alok was eliminated at eighth place.

Another big hand at the table saw Maitrayee Vaidya busted at seventh place, with Shravan Chhabria following at sixth place. On his last hand of the tournament, Maitrayee open shoved with 61,400, while Shravan went all in for 1,47,000. Tushar who had both the players covered, made the call. Maitrayee had Ace-Jack, with Shravan holding pocket queens and Tushar tabled Ace-King. The board opened King-high and Tushar stacked up with the other two hitting the rails.

When play was four-handed, a deal was struck with chip counts at –

Tushar Bharati – 349,000
Pranay Kapoor – 324,000
Vaibhav Damle – 177,000
Ankit Turkhud – 136,000

With the exit of Vaibhav Damle at fourth place and Tushar Bharati at third, it was time for a heads up between Ankit and Pranay.

The final hand came soon when Pranay min-raised to 24,000 and Ankit moved all-in. In response, Pranay called.

Pranay Ace-Queen

Ankit Queen-Six

Ankit clipped a six on the board to win the title, while Pranay finished runner-up for ₹2.45 Lakhs.

Final Results

1. Ankit Turkhud – ₹2,75,000*

2. Pranay Kapoor – ₹2,45,000*

3. Tushar Bharati – ₹1,45,000*

4. Vaibhav Damle – ₹1,45.000*

5. Rahul Sharma – ₹80,000

6. Shravan Chhabria – ₹60,000

7. Maitreya Vaidya – ₹50,000

*denotes four-handed deal