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Match Indian Poker League Team Haryana Hawks Signs PokerBaazi as Title Sponsor

The one-of-a-kind poker league Match Indian Poker League (MIPL) promoted by Raj and Shilpa Shetty Kundra’s Viaan Industries Ltd. and Switzerland-based International Federation of Match Poker (IFMP), made a grand debut last year with local Team Mumbai All Stars winning Season 1 for ₹1.25 crores.

The League is now gearing up for Season 2 that will be held on March 31 in Kolkata and by the looks of it, the excitement is expected to escalate even further with more action and fanfare.

Season 2 will see 10 teams competing in a one-day grand finale with the winning team set to take home a ₹40 Lakhs cheque along with the chance to represent Team India at the Match Poker Asia Nations Cup to be held in Bangkok in April.

Another new development in Season 2 is the collaboration between the teams and renowned domestic online poker sites as Title Sponsors. Headlining the brand alliances at this edition is a new team – Haryana Hawks that has tied up with India’s most trusted poker site – PokerBaazi.

PokerBaazi’s founder and CEO Navkiran Singh spoke to PokerGuru and shared his excitement on the collaboration saying, “It’s a proud moment for PokerBaazi to associate with Match IPL – first of its kind in India. Team Haryana Hawks has some of the most talented Poker players from the country. I think MIPL is a great platform for poker players to showcase their skill at this spectacular mind-sport. We are really looking forward to this breakthrough concept. This will play an instrumental role in changing the mind-set of people about poker, especially in our country.”

Pulkit Totla, co-owner of Haryana Hawks was equally stoked and said, “Haryana Hawks would like to welcome PokerBaazi.com on board as our title sponsor and shareholders. We, at Haryana Hawks, are really excited about this association and feel this association will change the face of the Poker Sports League business. With PokerBaazi.com coming as our shareholders, we hope to use their experience and expertise in Poker business and their trusted brand to help us get maximum traction and brand value. We believe we have created the best synergies by this association and are looking forward to continuously use PokerBaazi.com’s expertise in poker business to enhance our brand value and market visibility.”

PokerBaazi is offering a unique opportunity to all players to get selected as a team member of Haryana Hawks. PokerBaazi will host official online qualifiers between March 18 – 20 with the qualifier finale on March 21. The finale winner will get a chance to represent Haryana Hawks in Match IPL Season 2, while the top three finishers will receive free tickets to high value tournaments on PokerBaazi.

 

Haryana Hawks

A. Owners

Haryana Hawks is owned by some of the sharpest minds in the country with a diverse and rich experience that cuts across various industries. The owners include renowned poker players as well as experienced professionals from various fields and include Pulkit Totla (ex-investment banker, FMS Delhi alumni and poker enthusiast), Nitin Maheshwari (Founder – Director of Gajanan Group functioning in steel, real estate and logistics), Jitendra Agarwal (Practicing Chartered Accountant and CEO of Rajasthan’s best investment advisory company), Jagdeep Singh (IIM, Lucknow alumnus and professional poker player), Kalyan Chakravarthy (IIT Delhi alumnus and professional poker player), Navkiran Singh (co-founder and CEO of PokerBaazi.com – also known as India’s most trusted poker website) and Pranjal Batra (IIT Bombay graduate and poker enthusiast).

 

B. Team Members

1. Jagdeep Singh (Captain): Widely regarded as one of the best high stakes PLO players in the country today, Delhi-lad Singh was part of Season 1`s winning team Mumbai All Stars and will be leading the charge for Haryana Hawks in Match IPL Season 2. The IIM-Indore graduate is also the co-owner of the team and has been playing poker professionally for over four years. Singh boasts of a ton of experience both live and online.

Jagdeep Singh
Jagdeep Singh

2. Kalyan Chakravarthy – Fresh off from winning the Adda52 Millions, Chakravarthy has been one of the most successful Indian poker players this year, having made waves both on the domestic as well as international circuit. In addition to being the co-owner of the team, Chakravarthy`s experience in both cash games and tournaments certainly makes him a valuable addition to the well-rounded team.

Kalyan Chakravarthy
Kalyan Chakravarthy

3. Pratibha Arya – The lone female poker player to represent Team India at the Match Poker Nations Cup 2017, another former Mumbai All Stars team member, Arya will represent Haryana Hawks this season. Arya was introduced to poker in 2015 and after pursuing Masters in Computer Sciences she now plays poker professionally. Along with a few live deep runs, her poker resume boasts of numerous final table finishes on various online poker websites.

Pratibha Arya
Pratibha Arya

 

4. Sabyasachi ‘saby’ Chakraborty – Having learnt the game while pursuing his masters in Manila, Chakraborty aka saby has been one of the more consistent online MTT players and boasts of numerous scores on PokerStars where he plays under the moniker ‘infusion_leo’.

Sabyasachi Chakraborty
Sabyasachi Chakraborty

5. Amit Varma – Varma is a successful writer and as a journalist he has written for publications such as the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, the Observer and almost all the Indian newspapers. Varma was one of the first batch of PokerGuru pros, trained and mentored by Aditya ‘intervention’ Agarwal.

Amit Varma
Amit Varma

 

6. Prabhat Kiran Mukherjea – Mukherjea is a name associated with some of the biggest poker scores both online and live tournaments between 2011 and 2013. Mukherjea is a law professional turned poker pro, who is now a long-term trader. Mukherjea has stayed away from the poker tables these past few years but adds immense value to the Team given his experience.

Prabhat Mukherjea
Prabhat Mukherjea

 

7. Keshav Chadha – Delhi lad Chadha is one of the budding poker talents of the country and is a regular at domestic poker tournaments. Chadha boasts of numerous deep runs in major events held across the country.

Keshav Chadha
Keshav Chadha

 

Your Chance to Represent Haryana Hawks at MIPL Season 2

PokerBaazi will host official qualifiers starting March 18, with the finale to be hosted on March 20. The winner will be selected in the Haryana Hawks team and the top three finishers of the finale will be awarded with tournament tickets to high value events on PokerBaazi.

Below are the details of all the qualifiers –

Match IPL Qualifier1: This tournament will start at 8.30pm on March 18. Entry through deposit code ‘MIPL1’ with a deposit of ₹500.

Match IPL Qualifier2: This tournament will start at 8.30pm on March 19. Entry through deposit code ‘MIPL2’ with a deposit of ₹500.

Match IPL Qualifier3: This tournament will start at 8.30pm on March 20. Entry through deposit code ‘MIPL3’ with a deposit of ₹500.

Match IPL Qualifier Finale: This tournament will start at 8.30pm on March 21. Only the top 15 players from Qualifier 1, Qualifier 2 & Qualifier 3 will be eligible to play this tournament.

The Finale winner will be selected to play for Haryana Hawks and below are the additional tournament tickets to be won in the Qualifier Finale:

1st place: The Summit ₹10 Lakhs GTD on March 22, BSS ₹15 Lakhs GTD on March 25 and The Endeavour ₹15 Lakhs GTD on March 27.

2nd place: The Summit ₹10 Lakhs GTD on March 22 and The Endeavour ₹15 Lakhs GTD on March 27.

3rd place: Mini Endeavour ₹5 Lakhs GTD on March 26 and Mini Summit ₹5 Lakhs GTD on March 28.

Keep following all the updates from Match IPL Season 2 right here on PokerGuru!

Abhinav Aditya Wins MAPC 100K High Roller Title For ₹30.15 Lakhs; Aditya Sushant Tops Day 1A of Main Event

After an action-packed two days, the Mahjong Aquarium Poker Championship (MAPC) completed its first event – 100K High Roller, which was won by Abhinav Aditya (cover image) for ₹30.15 Lakhs.

Day 2 of the High Roller also marked the start of the 50K Main Event, which completed the first of two starting flights i.e. Day 1A with Aditya Sushant (286K chips) leading the final 14 survivors. Day 1B of the Main Event gets underway today.

 

100K High Roller

Day 1

A force to reckon with at the cash games tables, Abhinav Aditya was attending his second tournament since winning the Rocket Anniversary Series Golden Grind Main Event in Bengaluru last May and believe it or not he went on to win it for ₹30.15 Lakhs.

The two-day High Roller drew a huge entry-crowd of 90, easily crushing the original ₹60 Lakhs guarantee. ‘Shuffle up and Deal’ was announced by Casino Mahajong`s Ugen Ladakhi, even as Sangeeth Mohan, Tournament Director declared that Day 1 would last till Level 10 the same night.

Casino Mahjong`s Ugen Ladakhi welcoming all players to MAPC
Casino Mahjong`s Ugen Ladakhi welcoming all players to MAPC

India’s top poker names could be seen including Clawin D’Souza, Anup Palod, Amit Jain,Kunal Patni, Sharad Rao, Sumit Asrani, Sahil Agarwal, Amit Ajwani, Manish Adnani, Sahil Chutani, Sabyasachi ‘Saby’ Chakraborty, Charu Vikram Kaushik, Praveen Dwarkanath, Akash Malik, Kanihska Samant, Dhaval Mudgal and Shazman Neville Shroff.

Shroff, however, was one of the earliest exits along with Dwarkanath, Nitesh Maheshwari and Bhola Maheshwari.

Eliminations continued and one of the last exits of the day was Patni, felled by pocket kings, which have regularly proved his downfall. The hand saw Patni face Kanishka’s , which found another ace on the board and Patni was out as the day ended.

MAPC High Roller Day 1 chip leader Dawa Sherpa
MAPC High Roller Day 1 chip leader Dawa Sherpa

Day 2

35 survivors began Day 2 and leading them was Nepal`s Dawa Sherpa with a stack of 246,200. Notables in the fray included Clawin D’Souza, Rahul Melwani, Anup Palod, Kanishka Samant, Akash Malik, Amit Jain, Raghav Bansal, Amit Ajwani & Jagdeep Singh, while eventual winner Abhinav was at mid-stacks with about 113K chips.

The first to go was Team Adda52 Pro Amit ‘bblacklegend’ Jain who moved allin on the board as Anand Bhartia and Amit Ajwani called.

Amit Jain

Amit Ajwani

Anand Bhartia

The river with gave Ajwani a straight and Jain was out at 35th place.

Action was fast and thick with eliminations and Kalyan Chakravarthy kept up the pressure busting players. In a crucial hand he took down Raghav Bansal in a preflop allin showdown –

Raghav Bansal

Kalyan Chakravarthy

The board sent out and Bansal exited at 19th place.

By the time play was down to 15 players, Abhinav Aditya was one of the lower stacks, with Kanishka Samant and Clawin D’Souza leading until the latter lost a huge stack to Samant, when his king-nine suited were overtaken by Samant’s jack-ten.

A few hands later D’Souza was busted by Samant at 13th place, this time it was the latter’s pocket sevens against his with the board delivering .

The money bubble burst on C. R. Mishra. Akash Malik opened UTG for 27,000 and Mishra moved all-in for 35K with . Malik called with . The board had and Mishra was out at 10th place.

Vikram Kumar was the first to cash at ninth place for ₹2.43 Lakhs and it was after this that Aditya emerged to bust Dhaval Mudgal at eighth place and start the final table with the leading stack of 711,000.

MAPC 100K High Roller Final Table
MAPC 100K High Roller Final Table

Final Table Chip Counts

Abhinav Aditya – 711,000
Kanishka Samant – 676,000
Kalyan Chakravarthy – 618,000
Rahul Gupta – 541,000
Akash Malik – 492,000
Vinay Deshlahra – 407,000
Sumit Asrani – 186,000

20 minutes into the final table and short-stacked Sumit Asrani was railed at seventh place by Akash Malik, followed by a long play of 40 minutes as no player would give an inch.

Sumit Asrani
Sumit Asrani

Vinay Deshlahra was then busted by Chakravarthy at sixth place, while Rahul Gupta was railed by Aditya at fifth place.

A deal was then proposed between the final four, but failed. It was again discussed after the elimination of Kanishka Samant, who was busted by Akash Malik and exited at fourth place.

The victory was short-lived as 10 minutes later Malik was ousted by Abhinav Aditya, when the former’s pocket king’s fell short against Aditya’s ace-queen.

Akash Malik
Akash Malik

Heads up began with Abhinav Aditya (1900K) facing off Kalyan Chakravarthy (1700K) and was over within 30 minutes. On the last hand of the tournament, Aditya held , while Chakravarthy tabled . The flop brought giving Chakravarthy hope by opening a flush draw, but the turn with handed Aditya a full house and the title. Chakravarthy made a runner-up finish for ₹16.92 Lakhs!

Kalyan Chakravarthy
Kalyan Chakravarthy

Final Results

1. Abhinav Aditya – ₹30,15,000

2. Kalyan Chakravarthy – ₹16,92,000

3. Akash Malik – ₹10,80,000

4. Kanishka Samant – ₹9,00,000

5. Rahul Gupta – ₹7,20,000

6. Vinay Deshlahra – ₹5,40,000

7. Sumit Asrani – ₹4,50,000

8. Dhaval Mudgal – ₹3,60,000

9. Vikram Kumar – ₹2,43,000

 

50K Main Event

The 50K Main Event began an hour late and drew 53 entries (51 unique and 2 re-entries). At the end of Day 1A, there were just 14 players left, led by Aditya Sushant who bagged the largest stack of 286,600 chips.

Aditya Sushant
Aditya Sushant

Trailing him is DD Thacker (179,000) with Nitesh Maheshwari rounding up the top three stacks with 139,800.

Some notables still in contention include Praveen Dwarkanath, Abhishek Jalan, Amit ‘bblacklegend’ Jain, Sharad Rao and Amit Ajwani.

 

Here is the complete Day 1A end-of-day chip counts:

Table 11

Bharath Janardhan – 45,200
DD Thacker – 179,700
Amit Jain – 77,100
Amit Ajwani – 72,100
Mahaveer Jain – 89,800
Nitesh Maheshwari – 139,800
Devesh Thapar – 183,200

Table 12

Nikhil Jain – 52,900
Manish Kumar – 130,800
Anup Agarwal – 81,000
Aditya Sushant – 286,600
Mandira Singh – 40,200
Praveen Dwarkanath – 132,500
Sharad Rao – 79000

Day 1B will resume at 4 pm today with all players who were eliminated yesterday having the option to re-enter today.

Keep following the latest updates from MAPC right here on PokerGuru!

Trouble Brewing at StarPoker?! Maria Kirloskar & Rajat Sharma Quit Brand Tie-Up

Less than a fortnight ago, we had posted news of StarPoker.in having signed on pro Rajat Sharma as the latest team member. In a sudden development, reports have come in stating that the player has quit the brand tie-up.

Moreover, Rajat is not the only one, hours before the news broke of his quitting, Maria ‘dr4gonLady’ Kirloskar, who had been one of the first two brand ambassadors signed up by StarPoker.in posted on Facebook that she had resigned from the team as of June 28, 2016.

Kirloskar wrote, “Just letting everyone know – I have resigned from StarPoker.in as of June 28, 2016. I enjoyed working with the StarPoker.in Team and wish them all the best, always. I will be around, playing much more live Poker, so see you all on the tables 🙂

Kirloskar had been signed on in October, 2015, along with Sabyasachi ‘Infusion_leo’ Chakraborty. And, it had been curious when Sabyasachi’s name had been missing from the announcement made on June 30.

Currently there are no details about what has transpired, but clearly something is brewing at StarPoker.in, with two of these resignations coming at the same time all out of the blue. According to sources, some big changes in the management of the company have taken place recently.

Keep following the latest updates on this story right here on PokerGuru.

Viru Dahiya Pips Pros Kunal Patni & Anil Gulati to Win IPC Dec Edition 5K Warm Up Event for ₹1.77 Lakhs

The India Poker Championship (IPC) Dec Edition officially kicked off with the ₹5K Warm Up event and if expectations were high, the results were equally thrilling to say the least, with both, a first-timer and pros making it in the top three. 24-year old engineer from Bengaluru, Viru Dahiya (cover image) snatched the title and the first place prize of ₹1.77 Lakhs from under the noses of Kunal Patni, who made second place for ₹1.55 Lakhs and Anil Gulati who made third place for ₹1.10 Lakhs.

Dahiya clinched the title after a heads up deal with Patni and post the win, told PokerGuru, “Unrealistic!, this truly is. I was pretty happy even when I made the money and never expected this. I started the final table 7th in chips and going on to win the tournament is unreal. For me it was not about the money, I just wanted the trophy.”

The event drew a healthy crowd of 246 entries and in a matter of eight hours, this field was whittled down to a final table of nine.

The Deltin Royale Poker Lounge could have easily made up a directory of country-wide poker players. Among the notables present were Sameer Rattonsey, Team Spartan Pro Sangeeth ‘samoh’ Mohan, Aditya Sushant, Danish Shaikh, Jasven Saigal, Sumit Asrani, Sahil Agarwal, Uday Patil, Zarvan Tumboli, Vinod M, Vidwath Shetty, Kanishak Kapoor, Jaydeep Dawer, Haresh Kukreja, Abhisek Panda, Shashank Desai, Rajeev Raut.

The event began with gusto and Sabyasachi ‘Saby’ Chakraborty, Prabhakar Che, Vikram Kumar, Team Spartan mentor Rohit Bhalla, Rajeev Kanjani, Dhaval Mudgal, Sharad Rao and Amit ‘bblacklegend’ Jain were among those who hit the rails within the first few hours of the event.

Anil Gulati broke away from the crowd and began to build a sizeable stack, right from the start. By 1:30 am, the time of the fourth break, Gulati had a stack of 171.5K, as against Denis CH, who was next in line with 116K in chips. At that point just 25 players were remaining, with eventual champion Dahiya lagging far behind with just 30K in chips.

With 24 players making the money, it was time for the bubble boy and this fell to Viraj Patil, who was eliminated in 25th place. Patil’s saw a board of blanks and Raviraj Singh with took down the pot, and made it to the money.

Eliminations now began at a steady pace and within a hour and half, the final table was reached with the elimination of Jaideep Sajwan, who was busted by Pawan Jain. Sajwan’s were called by Pavan Jain`s . The board ran out and Sajwan exited in tenth place, collecting ₹17K for his efforts.

 

Final Table Recap

The final table began with Patni leading with a huge stack of 217K, Ravi Raj Singh was next with 183K and Gulati was now at third place with 165K.

Final Table Chip Counts

1. Denis CH – 1,24,000
2. Kughahuto A – 63,000
3. Ravi Raj Singh – 1,83,000
4. Viru Dahiya – 1,13,000
5. Kunal Patni – 2,17,000
6. Srinivas M – 1,55,000
7. Pavan Jain – 1,58,000
8. Sumedh Balan – 57000
9. Anil Gulati – 1,65,000

Minutes later, Sumedh Balan followed at eighth place, busted by Raviraj Singh. After that, it was the turn of Srinivas N, who hit the rails in seventh place, with Denis CH and Pavan Jain exiting shortly thereafter at sixth and fifth place respectively.It took just 10 minutes for the first elimination, which turned out to be Kughahuto A, who was the second smallest stack at the final table. Kughahuto A moves all-in for 40,000 holding . Gulati with called. The board displayed and Kughahuto hit the rails in ninth place for ₹22,300.

Pavan Jain
Pavan Jain
Raviraj Singh
Raviraj Singh

This left four players in the fray and Raviraj led with 538,000. Anil Gulati was second in chips with 322,000, third was Kunal Patni with 232,000. Viru Dahiya had the smallest stack of 148,000.

A deal was quickly agreed with each player getting ₹1.10 Lakhs and another ₹1.12 Lakhs for the winner.

20 minutes later, Dahiya eliminated Raviraj Singh and doubled up to 655K in chips.

Viru Dahiya

Ravi Raj Singh

The community cards opened and Singh hit the rails in fourth place.

Almost simultaneously,Patni with his busted Gulati, who held and the board ran out . Gulati exited in third place.

Anil Gulati
Anil Gulati
Kunal Patni
Kunal Patni

Heads up play began with Patni and Dahiya almost equal in chips, but the latter kept chipping his way up to 892K, while Patni was left with just 338K.

Here a deal was again discussed and the two agreed on Dahiya getting ₹1.77 Lakhs and Patni taking ₹1.55 Lakhs, with the title left for the winner. 10 minutes later it was over, when the final hand saw Patni open shoving with . Dahiya with called. The board ran and Dahiya was the champion, with Patni making runner up for ₹1.55 Lakhs.

 

Final Results (₹)

1. Viru Dahiya – 1,77,000*

2. Kunal Patni – 1,55,000*

3. Anil Gulati – 1,10,000*

4. Raviraj Singh – 1,10,000*

5. Pavan Jain – 58,000

6. Denis CH – 45,000

7. Srinivas N – 36,000

8. Sumedh Balan – 28,000

9. Kughahuto A – 22,300

*denotes four-handed deal

PokerGuru congratulates Viru Dahiya on winning the IPC Dec 5K Warm Up event!

Follow the complete coverage of the IPC Dec Series right here on PokerGuru.

Online Rankings

i Top Ranked Poker Players in India
Member Won
Member Won
Member Won
₹1,29,29,197
₹1,25,88,313
₹1,20,69,627
₹1,15,22,676
5.Vinay B Vinay B
₹1,14,52,995
6.M L M L
₹1,14,40,871
₹1,09,13,473
₹1,05,24,690
₹99,60,672
₹99,49,327
Member Profit
Member Profit
Member Profit
₹55,77,649
₹50,59,154
₹47,48,174
₹46,54,932
₹44,93,503
₹43,84,994
₹43,56,316
₹42,00,183
₹41,14,429
₹40,97,624
Member Points
Member Points
Member Points
42,268
35,945
28,827
4.N K N K
28,311
25,814
25,649
24,477
24,446
9.M L M L
23,604
22,922

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