Daily Majors: Shashank Jain, Chirag Sodha, Sumit Sapra & Amit J Seize the Friday Flagships

As expected, Friday was choc-a-bloc with intense tournament action. While Spartan Poker’s Grand Poker Series (GPS) has straight away nosedived into The Millionaire excitement, the IMPS is rolling towards culmination on PokerBaazi. There was enough high roller action on PokerStars India alongside a charity event to keep the grinders awake.

Let’s take a look at the Friday highlights!

Spartan Poker

The fourth edition of the Grand Poker Series (GPS) began on Friday with a 10-day-long schedule boasting ₹7 Crores in guaranteed prizes. Unleashing big-ticket excitement right from the beginning, the opening day saw the ₹1 Crore GTD GPS The Millionaire United play out the first of its three starting flights. This is the first of the two Millionaire events on the GPS schedule. Day 1A attracted 360 entries, and after nearly five hours of battle, only 54 of them could qualify through to Day 2. Vishal ‘BLueWhale222’ Madan bagged the end-of-day chip lead with a stack of 178,059, with former MoneyMaker champion Nitish ‘buttonclicking’ Gupta (171,499) and ‘UnlukcyLoser’ (1,62,828) carrying forward the next top stacks.

MTT reg Shashank ‘westworld’ Jain (134,399) also carried a big stack to Day 2. But it was the other headliner – the ₹35 Lakhs GPS #4 The Elite – where Jain really outshone the others. The tournament saw 355 contenders (151 unique, 82 re-entries, and 122 rebuys) pony up the ₹11,000 entry buy-in, generating a profitable ₹35.50 Lakhs prize pool. Jain not only bested the fierce competition, but he also beat poker coach Abhishek ‘MambaMentality’ Goindi (runner-up for ₹5.06 Lakhs) heads-up to win the title and the ₹7.51 Lakhs that came with it.

Jain won this tournament for the second time last night. Last year in March, he had shipped The Elite for ₹4.49 Lakhs. His annual earnings have soared to ₹1.62 Crores while his lifetime online MTT record stands at ₹2.16 Crores.

Abhishek ‘nbc345’ Rathod (3rd for ₹3.56 Lakhs), Anirudh ‘flash’ Reddy (4th for ₹2.89 Lakhs), and PokerGuru Ambassador Gokul ‘Super Kings’ Raj (5th for ₹2.29 Lakhs) were the other known regs who FT-ed The Elite.

Running alongside The Elite was the ₹12 Lakhs GTD GPS #3 TGIF that gathered 799 entrants, falling just one entry short of its listed guarantee. It took close to eight hours before the final three players agreed on a deal that saw Mohit ‘thejoker’ Mehta take down the title for ₹1.63 Lakhs. Young Gun Siddharth ‘schemer77’ Karia (runner-up for ₹1.60 Lakhs) and ‘Sp3wdi3pi3‘ (3^rd for ₹1.59 Lakhs) were the other two players who benefitted from the deal.

This happens to be Mehta’s second TGIF win. On August 1, he had won this tourney for ₹2.21 Lakhs, and last night`s score has boosted his lifetime record to ₹66.8 Lakhs.

Rohit ‘ShippingYard’ Mishra (4th for ₹82,320) and Sahil ‘Hey_Jude’ Roxx (5th for ₹64,680) were the other prominent FT finishers in the TGIF.

PokerStars India

PokerStars India’s Friday mainstay, ₹15 Lakhs GTD Highroller sporting a ₹8,250 entry buy-in, began proceedings at 7.30 PM yesterday. By the time registrations closed, 198 entries had been recorded for a marginal ₹15,000 overlay. Amit ‘the_ziro’ J was the last player standing in the tourney and won ₹2.61 Lakhs after a heads-up deal with Shagun ‘Sogani22’ Jain (runner-up for ₹2.49 Lakhs).

Mohammad ‘Bund_Blaster’ Azhar (3^rd for ₹1.59 Lakhs), PokerGuru Ambassador Ankit ‘b00mtr00p3r’ Wadhawan (6^th for ₹63,882), Rishab ‘NoChan(3’ Malik (7^th for ₹47,057), Young Gun Devang ‘trappyfish93’ Yadav (8^th for ₹34,663), and Young Gun Gaurav ‘3betPanda’ Sood (9^th for ₹30,267) posted a deep run in the tourney.

The ₹5 Lakhs GTD Battle Royale saw the current TLB topper, Neeraj ‘SelfClaimedPro’ Kumar, besting the 191-strong field to win ₹1.02 Lakhs following a heads-up deal with ‘pranay1245’ (runner-up for ₹65,051).

Friday also marked the start of the seven-day long series ‘Play For A Cause’ in association with United Way of Chennai! The first of the seven tourneys, the ₹50K GTD Play For A Cause – ‘Seva Kitchen’ Charity Special tourney, logged in 75 entries translated into an overlay of ₹29,375. Vaibhav ‘vaibsss’ Bhatia championed the charity tourney to win ₹10,935.

PokerBaazi

The ₹50 Lakhs GTD IMPS Main Event ran two starting flights on Friday. Day 1B kicked off at 4 PM, registering 728 entries. Only 85 runners could bag chips for Day 2 with Moneel ‘moneeldoshi’ Doshi leading the charge with a stack of 571,000. Rishab ‘ryuk’ Malik (446,000) and Dipankar ‘dbelieves’ Arhat (309,000) bagged the next top stacks.

Day 1C garnered a lot more interest as 929 entries entered the tourney, and 90 among them made the cut for Day 2. ‘Pj2192’ (500,000) bagged the chip lead, with Raghav ‘Ragtag24’ Wahi (493,000) and ‘killingskill’ (430,000) in hot pursuit.

Combined with 1,123 entries from Day 1A, the ₹1,100 entry buy-in tourney has already roped in 2,780 entries with two starting flights still to go!

While the IMPS Main Event action was ongoing, the ₹20 Lakhs GTD Weekly HighRoller began proceedings at 8 PM. The ₹11,000 entry buy-in tourney registered 189 entries to fall ₹1.10 Lakh short of the listed guarantee. Things played down to a climactic finale with two seasoned pros Sumit ‘boronyx’ Sapra and Abhinav ‘griezmann’ Iyer, jostling for the bragging rights. Sapra proved the last player standing and won ₹4.83 Lakhs, with Iyer making do with a runner-up score worth ₹3.39 Lakhs.

Sapra’s trailblazing win comes only two days after winning the Adda52 Wednesday marquee, the ₹15 Lakhs GTD Maverick for ₹3.75 Lakhs. The APL brand ambassador currently sits on ₹5.76 Crore in recorded online winnings.

Some of the top talents who made it to the six-max FT in the Weekly HighRoller included Young Gun Gaurav ‘gaug17’ Sood (3^rd for ₹2.18 Lakhs), Ayush ‘Proman502’ Garg (4^th for ₹1.61 Lakhs), Guruprasad ‘fish_calling’ Gupta (5^th for ₹1.21 Lakhs) and Rohit ‘Executioner00’ Jinwal (6^th for ₹96,800).

Both Garg and Sood posted multiple FT scores yesterday. While Sood placed ninth in PokerStars India’s ₹15 Lakhs GTD Highroller for ₹30,267, Garg placed fourth in Adda52’s ₹6 Lakhs GTD Running Hot for ₹51,000.

Adda52

Adda52’a Friday flagship The Ballers made another of its scheduled runs with a prize pool guarantee of ₹22.5 Lakhs. The tournament did good business as a turnout of 358 hopefuls collected a profitable prize pool of ₹24.52 Lakhs. It was 4.25 AM in the morning today when the tournament culminated, handing out the title and a fat payroll of ₹6.13 Lakhs to Chirag ‘cs56’ Sodha. Seasoned poker pro Raghav ‘BaLuGaWhAIE’ Bansal finished runner-up for ₹3.71 Lakhs.

Also making it to the FT was Smita ‘coconik’ Agarwalla (3^rd for ₹2.69 Lakhs), former bracelet champion, Aditya ‘a_sushant’ Sushant (5^th for ₹1.31 Lakhs), and Goonjan ‘ gmtesting’ Mall (6^th for ₹91,961).

Another player to join the champion’s club was ‘fiery’ who padded their bankroll by ₹1.56 Lakhs after topping the 250-entry field in the ₹6 Lakhs GTD Running Hot. The tourney suffered a glaring ₹1 Lakh shortfall. Ayush ‘lazyman’ Garg finished 4^th in the Running Hot for ₹51,000.

Pocket52

Headlining the tournament run on Pocket52 yesterday was the ₹2,200 entry buy-in ₹5 Lakhs GTD Pocket Kings. ‘AllwaysbuffinG’ topped a field of 323 entries to win ₹95,500, ‘NITINRAWAT’ finished runner-up for ₹70,000.

The other notable winners of Friday were:

We have a scheduled server update today because of which we will not be updating the detailed report.