Laksh Pal Singh
Screen Names
boomtlt23
boomtilt23
B00MTilt23
b00mTilt23
LuckyBhai$
Pocket52 Poker Sports League Season 5 – Bigger and Better Than Ever!
August 23, 2023 in Home Blogs, News, Featured
That was what the Poker Sports League management promised us this year, and that is exactly what was delivered. This edition of PSL was grand in many ways, and I’d first like to thank everyone who made this event possible.
Nitesh Salvi – founder and CEO of Pocket52, title sponsors of PSL, Pranav Bagai, Siddharth Mishra, and Prajit Gambhir, the three musketeers who started this wonderful concept of PSL and have worked endlessly over the last five years to grow this mind sport!
Prajit, you legend. God only knows how many roles you have at PSL! From being COO to the auctioneer to commentary to ensuring that the show goes on every single time, big shoutout to you, brother, and to Vidur also for making sure every pre-show and every stream was super smooth. Sid and his production team, wow, man, I don’t even know what to say. You guys are so good at what you do! This year the production team of PSL has really outdone themselves. From every reel to every Instagram story to every update, I have to say the content was fabulous.
Obviously couldn’t have done it without your ever-so-talented team! Dashank, Madhur, and Pandey Ji, big shoutout to the three of you for doing such a great job and just being awesome people in general. I’m really fond of the entire PSL team and of course the man himself, the mastermind Pranav Bagai for making this happen on Jio Cinema- working day in and day out to achieve his vision for poker in India.
I want to thank all the owners for supporting this league every single year and spreading their love and passion for poker. This league would not be possible without you!
The Experience
Pocket52 PSL Season 5 was something else only. Everyone together on land in the same resort under the same roof, with no hassle of going onto the ship, everyone bonding and interacting.
Personally, for me, the highlight was interacting with the qualifiers from all teams, it’s really nice to talk with someone when you know they look up to you and whatever you’re saying has an impact on them.
It was really heartwarming to meet the Massani brothers, these boys were the heroes of PSL, and that’s another story to tell. Taking a domestic flight for the first time, these two brothers have come from Bhopal and won all our hearts. What gems of human beings, so much confidence, so much energy, I just loved it, to be honest. I had a great time with all my friends and all the other captains who I’m so close to off the felts!
The competition was heavy, and everyone was so passionate and into it. So yeah, GG to my boys – Dirty (Dhaval Mudgal) and Shardul (Parthasarathi) for also taking podium finishes, I had already told Shardul I was going see him heads up and win this time.
Big shoutout to Gaurav Sood, one of the best poker players in India, for playing the finale like an absolute boss man and ensuring I’m shitting myself on the rails while he’s reducing the chip deficit. Love you, Mozzie unlucky one, and you’ll be back stronger we all know it.
Shoutout to Romit (Advani) and Vaibhav (Sharma) for being fantastic team leaders- you win some, you lose some, and I am sure we will see you guys in the top 3 next season!
Now coming to my team, oh man, I don’t think I’ve ever felt such a sense of comradery and team spirit in my life. PSL adrenaline just hits differently. I’ve played a lot of tournaments in my life and hit a lot of one-outers for big money, but I’ve never jumped the way PSL made me jump and shout and scream, and it’s a different kind of excitement altogether.
Bringing a team format and making an individual sport a team game is honestly a genius concept! I would like to thank my team owners, Mr Puneet Mehra, Mehul Shah, and Rishi, for trusting me to lead this team again despite a not-so-great performance the previous year. Special shoutout to their families as well, Toral ma’am Divyansh and Prerna, for cheering on the Mumbai team and making sure our rail was the loudest and full of energy. Really happy that Mehul and Rishi also came down and really felt it with the team and were involved and there from start to finish.
Speaking about my team, I want to say I’m so proud of you guys – every point earned by each of you was crucial to us winning and reaching the finale. I remember the day we reached Goa and had our first team meeting, I was really impressed with Puneet sir because he gave a really inspirational team talk on Day 1 itself, which had a big impact on our team. I have to say one thing about my team, though, everyone was really into it, The togetherness and team spirit was really evident, and I think from Day 1, we manifested the win when we took that picture near the trophy.
Humaara wildcard kaisa ho, Alok Birewar jaisa ho! I think the best decision I made this PSL, other than my obvious retentions of Akshay Nasa and Honey Bijlani, was to sign Alok as my wildcard. I knew Alok wouldn’t do it for the money; he wanted to play PSL, he loves strategizing, he was railing every table every tournament, his team spirit was unparalleled, and the best in the league, so kudos bro I’m proud of you, and you did a great job.
Akshay Nasa, my player, said I am born ready when I asked him if he was going to play the finale. Our strategy was simple, get 250 BB in the finale, send Nasa, and ship it!! Shoutout to Ankit, our 2nd pro, for a great performance joining Nasa in the finale, and also getting the ever so-crucial points in the live MTT, but also for declaring that we’ve won before the league even started.
Honey Bijjlani, for doing more work than the captain, bhai this team would not have won without you, I openly state that you are going to be retained every year for Mumbai Anchors. Nitin Gulati for his passion for this team, getting merchandise and hoodies made for the entire team, thank you, bhai! Simran Malhotra, my fellow Pocket52 team pro, for never disappointing me, for being the number 1 woman player of the league, and for her spirit and love for the team.
Dhirendra Kumar and Avinash Tauro for being on top of things, speaking to the new boys, railing watching the stream making notes, top top performance guys. And of course the new boys Shravan and Nikaas, who I couldn’t believe, played live poker for the first time. They both killed it and got super important points for the team. Every single point contributed by each of you was crucial to this team’s success.
It was a rollercoaster of three days, with ups and downs and highs and lows; the excitement and energy were high, and it was the best three days of my life. Humne bahut chipkaaya, 3 straight days chipkaaya, but you gotta spike to ship, and there was no way Mumbai was not winning this season. Also, a big shoutout to my first mentor and dear friend Sahil Mahboobani for top-notch performance and taking down the Player of the Series, so happy for you, bro!
Lifting that trophy was a great feeling and something that’ll stay with me for life, I hope to recreate many more memories with PSL and Mumbai Anchors!
GG everyone, until next time!
Aaamchiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii Mumbaiiiiiiii
Fish on heater- shipping my first major on Spartan
March 20, 2019 in News
Hey guys, BoomTilt is back with a blog, or you can call me LuckyBhai now haha! It’s been a great week for me, both on and off the felts. I just recently started coaching under Adi(Aditya ‘intervention’ Agarwal). He’s been taking sessions on the regular and the discussions are extremely interesting. I’ve been waking up daily, looking forward to the lessons, and learning from the best! One of the first things that Adi is stressing upon is to open up a lot more. Aggression is key in Poker and I’ve been trying to bring that aspect into my game. Spent this week trying to implement whatever we’ve been taught.
I’ve had a pretty insane week on the online felts, registering several Deep runs including a few small wins and 2 of my biggest wins! It all started last Sunday, when I won a 30$ satellite into a 200$ 100k gtd tournament on an international website. I started my Sunday grind at around 5pm and jumped into this satellite, managed to bag a seat and the tournament started around 8pm. Inspired by Chris Moneymaker(WSOP main event winner through satellite) , I was determined to turn this satellite into something! 12.5 hours later and after a 16.5 hour Sunday session, we shipped the tournament for $17767, our biggest win till date. The feeling was unreal- from a satty to the win!
But the highlight of my week was definitely shipping the Sunday Superstack on The Spartan Poker for my biggest score on Indian sites! To be honest, I was getting a little uncomfortable with the fact that I hadn’t shipped a major on Spartan, other than the daredevil. It had been on my mind for sometime and I’d even discussed it with fellow Poker mates. But the curse was finally broken on Sunday night! After 7 hours, we emerged victorious and came out on top of a field of 461 entries to win the biggest weekly featured tournament on Indian sites. What a way to end the draught on Spartan.
What a week it’s been! I couldn’t be happier and all credit goes to Team PokerGuru. Kudos to the management and coaches for motivating and mentoring us on a daily basis and inspiring us to crush! Kartik and Lungi Bhai have created a team of sickos and I couldn’t be more satisfied with life at PokerGuru Staking. And lastly thanks to Adi, learnt a lot in just a few sessions and excited to keep learning and crushing! I mentioned this in my last blog, and would like to say it again- big shoutout to Ashish Munot, learnt a lot from this beast. I owe you one Kawa ?
Until next time,
LuckyBhai$
#PokerguruAmbassador #PokerguruStaking #Apnatimeaayega
Poker Diaries- Travelling the Asian circuit
November 30, 2019 in News
Yoyo guys, I’ve been traveling a fair bit in the last 6 months, so I haven’t been able to blog much. Finally got the chance to pen something down and tell you guys about my recent trip to Vietnam and Cambodia.
The first stop was Vietnam where we went to attend the Asian Poker Tour (APT). It was my third trip to Ho Chi Minh City and my second APT. I was accompanied by fellow PokerGuru Ambassadors Ashish Munot, Ankit Wadhawan, and the maaliks – Kartik Ved and Madhav Gupta (there you go Maddy, someone finally called you maalik on a public platform?). So we had quite the PokerGuru contingent flying down and a lot of sweats to look forward to.
I played a couple of side events and the Main Event but had no luck in either. Then in the last event – the Championships Event, we had a good run where we finished 10th for around $5K. To be honest, I was disappointed with the result because I was chip leading the tournament with 14 left and $70k up-top, but a string of unfortunate hands caused me to bust out.
I was extremely gutted as I had finished 15th in the same event at the last APT, and things were looking pretty decent on the final two tables this time around. We had all the chips in play and were running over our table, but things really didn’t go our way, and within an hour, we went from CL to busto 🙁
Initially, I was a bit heartbroken because sometimes in live poker you’re so emotionally vested in a tournament, and you get a bit attached to it by the time you reach day 3 or 4. Bust outs are way more tilting than online. Dirty (Dhaval Mudgal), who was deep with me in the same event had a talk with me and told me at the time that you’re going to be in the same situation over and over again in life, and it’ll only make you stronger. His words definitely stuck with me, and I am motivated to come back to APT next time and ship this Championship Event and bring home that APT lions trophy!
Our next stop was Phnom Penh, Cambodia, for the World Poker Tour! It was my first time in Cambodia, and I have to say it was a fantastic experience. We stayed in the Nagaworld Hotel and Casino, a massive property comprising of two attached casino hotels. It was the first time I stayed in a casino hotel and even though I’ve never been to Vegas, it did feel close enough ?
WPT Cambodia was amazing! The numbers were excellent, the setup and the organization were top notch, and I had a great time playing poker at Naga. Danny and the whole WPT team are super good at what they do, and they make sure that the players have a great experience. It was great to meet new people at the tables. I met a lot of interesting people from different parts of the world and that’s the beauty of live poker and events like WPT!
As for poker, we bricked almost everything except the opening event that we played which was the the Main Event Warm Up, where we finished runner up for $17.5K, our career-best live score! I entered heads up with a chip lead but couldn’t close it. It was my first ever live heads up, and I was pretty happy with the result since I entered the final table as the shortest stack with 9bb.
The transition from online poker to live poker has been slow. It’s taken me a few series to adjust to a lot of things, but now I feel more confident live and feel good about my game. I’m prepared to continue to travel the Asian circuit and win my first title real soon!
We had a really good trip this time round even non-poker wise. It was great fun going down with the PG clan – kawa doom Maddy and maalik, and we were also joined by Gokula in Cambodia. We went out for some great meals and tuk-tuk rides! Everyone performed pretty well, especially Maddy, who is inches away from clinching the Student of the Year title ?
Looking forward to more such trips with the boys! Until next time, cheers!
Downswings & Mindset
May 22, 2019 in News
Hey guys, I’m back with another blog and today I’m gonna talk about mindset.
A good mindset is key in poker and as professionals, we often find ourselves in situations of negative mindsets. I personally have been going through this phase and I’m happy to be able to talk to you guys about it.
So what are the factors that lead to a negative mindset?
1. Downswings – downswings are standard in poker, especially in MTTs. The variance is such in MTTs that downswings are inevitable. Yet the best of us crumble during downswings. Why? Because of our negative mindsets.
2. External factors – these are external emotions that club in with your downswing and poker mindset and bring in even more negativity. Point to note is that during our upswings, these factors don’t have any relevance to us, we forget about their existence, but when poker ain’t going well, it feels like life isn’t going well and all these external factors seem to bother us more than they would normally. These factors could be anything, something from your past – family, girlfriend, anything.
Consequences of a negative mindset –
1. You play like crap. You spazz. You make mistakes, more mistakes and more mistakes. You take over ambitious lines, you aren’t focussed like you were, you justify your bad decisions because you are not in the optimal headspace to understand that what you’re doing is wrong.
2. You lose hope. The more negativity inside you, the more negative you’ll feel going into a hand, going into a flip. There are times when you just know you’re going to lose the hand even when you’re ahead and that negative feeling often turns into reality. (I sound like an amateur but this does happen even to the best of us).
3. You get attached to results because you’re trying to get out of your downswing. You’re not playing with the same mental stability and emotionless fear. You tilt after losing, after bricking, which you wouldn’t do normally when things are going fine. You think about the hypothetical situation – if my aces had held in that spot I would’ve won the tournament and my downswing would’ve been over.
These are just common symptoms of a poker players mindset. I would still say I’m relatively new to the sport as compared to most of the guys in the industry so obviously I’m not perfect and I do experience all these emotions. But realisation is the most important thing here. I realise where I’m going wrong. And I have decided to implement a few things-
1. Exercise – your mental and physical health are correlated. You gotta exercise to release those endorphins and remove the negativity from your mind or else your mind can become your worst enemy. It can flip you out. A clear mind is required to play optimal poker. You can do anything – gym, yoga, meditation, sports. The biggest issue I’m facing with exercising is being lazy. After grinding 10 hours a day I sleep by about 6 am and wake up by 4 pm and again laze around before grind and end up not exercising. I will have to change that if I want to stay sharp at the poker tables.
2. Eat healthy – this is the worst thing for poker players. Our lifestyle is so unhealthy. I’m jealous of the guys who balance their lives and can remain healthy even while playing poker. The amount of junk, outside food we eat, odd hours of eating, overeating, under eating, it’s all destroying our body and mind. I have decided to make it a point to eat healthy by including more fruits vegetables and home food in my diet.
3. Be emotionless – this is the most important and the hardest thing I find to do as a poker player. You gotta train your mind to not react. You gotta be cold, solid as a rock in every situation. You cannot lose control of your mind/emotions, cause that’s the end of your success right there. Understanding your emotions is also important. You gotta know on the day when your emotions are all over the place. Take a break that day. Do not grind, because trust me you’re gonna play the worst poker of your life. I was listening to a podcast by Isaac Haxton where he said that being emotionless in poker was very easy for him because he was just as emotionless as a person in life. Now obviously not everyone is the same but we can learn from these people. Learn to curb our emotions. Motivate ourselves, read a bencb quote every day (that helps me). Results should not affect us. Bad beats should be like water. Bricking is standard, shipping is standard. It is what it is. We fail everyday to succeed. The day is over, the result is gone, wake up the next day and show up and grind again. Fail again. Repeat.
4. Taking a break – to be a successful poker player you gotta grind hard, you gotta be a machine. But sometimes we go too long before taking a break. You don’t even realise you’re burnt out, you’re not playing optimally. Then comes the times where you wanna take a break but another series comes in and then another and then another. And then you just can’t find time for yourself or that break. What I have learnt from this is that a new series will keep coming. You miss two days, no biggie – because those two days will enable you to crush when you come back, rather than play badly those two days. There are two types of breaks- one is a short term break from poker altogether, this is just a day or two off and do something you enjoy. Second is a longer break but a poker break. When you’re not confident, when you’re negative, take a week or two off and study. Work on your game – spend time off the tables. Regain your confidence, and then come back and crush. That’s my plan post INSCOOP. Can’t just keep playing or you’ll just do the same things over and over again without improving.
That’s all I got for today and I’m happy I could share my mindset with you guys. Poker is a long term game, don’t chase short term results. Work on being a better person every day. Don’t chase glory, you are destined for it.
Cheers and GL at the tables!
Recapping my DPT February 2019 Experience
February 12, 2019 in News
Yo guys, happy to be blogging again. It’s been a good start to the year for me. I’ve had a pretty decent run online, been grinding hard and putting in the hours. It was a hectic month with IOPC, so I felt like a change from online. I made a last minute plan to come down to Goa to play the Deltin Poker Tournament.
I got in on Thursday afternoon and jumped straight into the first event- 15k NLH Deep dive. I ran up to 3x starting stack in the first few levels but got into an unfortunate spot where I lost with top pair against a flush in a 4 bet pot. Eventually busted K10s to 99 around 20 away from the money. All good though, just a warm up for the main event!
I took two bullets in the main event. Day 1A was slow, couldn’t really get much going and eventually busted jacks to aces. I caught up on some sleep and woke up fresh and well rested for day 1B where I got off to a good start in the first few levels. I was involved in a lot of hands and managed to take down a few decently sized pots to reach 2x SS after which I won an all in with AK against AQ and reached up to 3x starting stack. I maintained that stack for the next few levels but the last 3 levels were extremely swingy. I remember making a super light call with Ace high where I lost a decent chunk of my stack. Probably should’ve taken a bit more time there. I lost a few more unfortunate hands after which I went down to 10bb. On the last level I doubled up with AJ against A3 and managed to bag 20bb.
We entered day 2 with 41k starting at 1200/2400. I managed to run up my stack to 130k in the first level. Won an all in with jacks against AK. Then this Russian guy limps UTG, I isolate him with 88. Flop 722 he check shoves with Q7 and we call him off to scoop a big pot. After that I was cruising. Opening a lot, picking up small pots here and there and reached about 250k which was a healthy stack. Maintained my stack for a bit but then lost a massive flip AQ to JJ. After that just lost successive pots and finally was really short around the bubble. Maybe one of the shortest stacks. We made the money with 10 bigs and then tried to spin it up. We managed to double but finally busted in 24th 99 to 1010 for 36bb bringing our main event hopes to an end.
It was a good run, and I was satisfied with the way I played. I don’t have much live tournament experience and that is why I come for most tournaments in Goa. I feel like it gives you the experience required before you can take that step and start travelling internationally. It was a nice vibe at DPT and it was nice to see some new faces and younger players making the trip to come play the tournament. The field was decently soft with a diverse set of players. It’s always nice to chill with different players on our rest days and go for good meals, relax on the beach, refresh our minds. I’m definitely planning to come back here for the next DPT. Until then, back to the online grind with SSS starting this week.
Life at PokerGuru Staking!
January 24, 2019 in News
Hey guys, Laksh here, most of you in the Poker world know me as BoomTilt 😀 This week has been pretty exciting for us as we have all learnt about our new association with PokerGuru, making us ambassadors of PokerGuru Staking! It’s an exciting journey for us as players. Being ambassadors of the Media Powerhouse in the Poker industry is definitely a proud feeling. I remember the days when I was new to Poker, and used to read articles on PokerGuru. Never thought I’ll be blogging for the brand some day!
Today I decided to give you guys some insight as to what it is like to be part of PokerGuru Staking. I’m sure new players looking to be coached must be wondering what it’s like to be part of a Staking organisation?
So I’ve been a member of this organisation for the last 6 months, and let me tell you, it has changed my life. The discipline instilled in me is far far better than I could’ve ever imagined. Here at PokerGuru, we are like a team or family where everyone looks out for each other. It’s not just coaches but even other senior players give you advice, take sessions with you. There’s really a lot to learn in Poker, the learning curve is endless. It’s no secret that you can do it on your own but I feel like being with PokerGuru has given me a more structured approach to Poker. Discipline in terms of stake limits, bullets, volume, reviews is definitely something that’ll be instilled in you for life. Weekly sessions with our coaches ensures timely fixing of our leaks and remaining up to date with the latest meta. We are provided with all the latest content to study and improve our game. We are encouraged to leave our comfort zone and try new things. That’s something I was always hesitant to do whilst playing on my own limited bankroll. The overall confidence level is extremely high here at PokerGuru Staking and our results definitely speak for themselves. We have some extreme sickos on our team who I look up to who constantly inspire newer players like me to work harder and crush. Then again they’re always available to talk about a hand or tell me how I could’ve played it better. PokerGuru is always looking out for the best interests of the players and providing us the best opportunities both live and online. It’s just a great feeling being part of this family and I’m excited to continue this journey for many years to come.
BoomTilt signing off,
Cheers
