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The first domestic live stop of the year is finally in the books. The just-concluded Deltin Poker Tournament (DPT) Xpress brought live tournament poker back in Goa after an almost yearlong gap, and the bet paid off handsomely for the organizers. With record-shattering turnouts on all four days, the series set a new attendance benchmark in all events, more than doubling the previous best numbers recorded at past DPTX editions!
The Business Head of Poker at Deltin Royale, Manish J. Adnani, was ecstatic with the player turnouts when we spoke to him after the series. “The series’ numbers were surely past my expectations,” he said. “It was overwhelming to see this kind of participation, especially the 421 entries in the Main Event. Many players also made it for the event through satellites on Adda52. The team has worked relentlessly to deliver a great experience,” Adnani added.
After the two side events earlier in the week, the weekend action mainly was centered on the series` ₹15K Main Event. The Main Event held two starting flights on Saturday, and both of them registered record fields, hitting 421 entries (Day 1A – 250, Day 1B – 171) – over twice the 205-entry benchmark set at the DPTX Main Event in June 2019.
One-hundred-and-eight survivors returned for Day 2 on Sunday, and funny man Ramesh Rao Thotapalli (cover image) laughed all the way to the bank after beating them all to win his first live title and the lion’s share of the ₹58.05 Lakhs prize pool worth ₹12.04 Lakhs!
The 30-year old Thotapalli currently resides in Goa. He had entered the FT third in chips and single-handedly eliminated six of his eight FT opponents to win the DPTX trophy. Sameer Agarwal finished runner-up for ₹2.90 Lakhs.
Thotapalli is better-known for founding the popular Facebook group Indian Poker Bakchods. He has over a decade-long experience in playing live poker, but he has stuck to playing cash games for the most part. While his Hendon Mob profile list only two live cashes picked up in 2017 at Melbourne, he is well-known for his exploits in Bengaluru’s local tournaments in 2016. That said, the DPTX Main Event victory is not only Thotapalli’s biggest live tourney win; he has also broken new ground by clinching the DPTX trophy!
Talking to us, Thotapalli shared that he’s been going through a challenging phase in his personal life this past month and was really looking forward to playing at the DPT. “I just wanted to play the series and entered with a fresh mind,” he said, underlining that once he made it to the FT, he was pretty confident of making it to the top.
Thotapalli, who is full-time into organizing cash game festivals in Kolkata and Goa, when he’s not playing poker, added, “I had a good stack, to begin with, and was familiar with most of the players on the FT, knew their style…played solid, enjoyed every hand I played. It was never about the money. It was more about the title. I had to take down a title in India, so I’m glad that if not too early, finally I have it!!”
Interestingly, three of the past four DPTX Main Event champions, namely, Ankit Jajodia, Anant Purohit, and Deepak Raina, had made Day 2 in the Main Event. All three of them finished in the money, with Purohit and Raina making it to the FT!
The Sunday DPTX schedule also featured the ₹10K Deepstack Turbo. Here again, first-timer Gautham Raju was the last player standing as he topped the 171-entry field to win ₹4.30 Lakhs.
The resounding success of the DPTX will undoubtedly lead the way for other brands in lining up their live events. Adnani dropped a strong hint that an announcement for Deltin Royale’s flagship DPT series is on the horizon. Alluding to this, he said, “It was great to bring live tournament poker back to life in 2021. I am extremely happy with the event. All our teams have put in their best, and the results speak for themselves.
Look forward to announcing DPT dates in the coming few weeks. Hopefully, we can pull off DPT soon in the coming months based on the COVID situation going forward.”
₹15K Main Event – Day 2
The series’ showstopper, the ₹15K Main Event, logged in a record field of 421 entries across its two starting flights on Saturday, collecting an impressive ₹58.05 Lakhs prize pool.
The hearty participation ensured that the DPTX Main Event paid out over 50 places for the first time. The top 53 finishers pocketed a payday with a min-cash worth ₹25,310.
A little over a fourth of the starting field, i.e., 108 survivors (Day 1A – 62, Day 1B – 46), returned for the final day on Sunday. The musician-turned-MTT pro Dhaval Mudgal (2,54,100) – the Day 1B chip leader – entered Day 2 as the start of the day chip leader. J Raju (247,800), the second chip lead on Day 1B, held the second largest stack.
Day 2 began at 5 PM on Sunday, and it took three levels to reach the money. The hand-for-hand play on the money bubble ended with Suffraz Alam and Shiv Chug’s double-elimination on separate tables. Both players shared the 53rd payout worth ₹25,310, also winning the Main Event bubble contest to collect an Adda52 gift hamper each.
Some of the early ITM bustouts included Siddhanth Kripalani (51st for ₹25,310), Saumil Krishnani (49th for ₹25,310), Sankalp Marwah (46th for ₹25,310), Himanshu Gupta (43rd for ₹28,740), Varun Devayya (41st for ₹28,740), Akash Singhal (39th for ₹28,740), and Archit Garg (38th for ₹28,740).
Adda52 streamer Shivam Jain (24th for ₹47,890), Kshitij Kucheria (20th for ₹56,890), Guruprasad Gupta (17th for ₹68,210), Hetal Desai (16th for ₹68,210), Amit Dhal (15th for ₹83,020), Sanjay Mohan (14th for ₹83,020), J. Raju (13th for ₹83,020), Deepak Singh (12th for ₹99,850), and Vinay Jain (11th for ₹99,850) were some other players who posted a deep run.
There were three former DPTX Main Event champions in contention, and the March 2019 DPTX Main Event champion Ankit Jajodia (18th for ₹68,210) was the first of them to fall. The June 2019 DPTX Main Event champion Anant Purohit (39 BB) and the defending DPTX Main Event champion Deepak Raina (31 BB) made it to the FT.
The FT was a stacked one, with the series-opener Burn N Turn runner-up Nikunj Doshi getting a second shot at the title as he led the final nine with 79 big blinds (19,85,000). Thotapalli was third in chips with 40 big blinds, former WPT Vietnam Main Event champion Dhaval Mudgal (31 BB) and online regs Mohak Kapoor (38 BB) and Shivam Shukla (56 BB) also had decent stacks to maneuver.
Final Table Chip Counts
Final Table Recap
The shortest stack on the FT, Avinash Sharma, was the first player to be eliminated, and all his chips landed with Ramesh Rao Thotapalli.
Dhaval Mudgal and Deepak Raina doubled up before Raina lost his tournament live in eighth place. The defending Main Event champion hit tips with ace-ten, but Shivam Shukla’s pocket treys improved to a full house to win the pot.
The other former DPTX Main Event champion Anant Purohit didn’t last long either. His pocket jacks were cracked by Thotapalli’s ace-king in seventh place.
Next up, Nikunj Doshi was eliminated in sixth place by Shivam Shukla.
Sitting in the chip lead, Thotapalli took over a commanding advantage after scoring three back-to-back eliminations. He eliminated Mohak Kapoor, Shivam Shukla, and Dhaval Mudgal in fifth to third place, respectively.
With an overwhelming chip lead, Thotapalli soon dispatched his heads-up opponent Sameer Agarwal to win the Main Event title.
The final hand saw Agarwal jamming his 16 big blind-stack, and Thotappali called it off.
Sameer Agarwal
Ramesh Rao Thotapalli
The board ran giving Thotapalli a wheel.
Final Table Results (INR)
Gautham Raju Wins ₹10K Deepstack Turbo For ₹4.30 Lakhs
The final tourney on the DPTX roster, the ₹10K Deepstack Turbo, took off at 7 PM on Sunday. For the first time, the event featured the re-entry option. By the time late registrations closed at the end of Level 8, 171 entries had been recorded in the event (included 60 re-entries).
Gautham Raju was the last player standing and won the DPTX trophy along with ₹4.30 Lakhs in prize money.
Raju was fifth in stacks at the start of the final table, with Akshit Gupta starting out in pole position. Gupta ran out of chips to take home a third-place payout, setting up the heads-up finale between Gautham Raju and Akash Singhal.
The deciding hand saw Raju moving all-in with and Singhal put his tournament life at risk with . Gautham paired his nine on the runout to win the tourney.
The top 21 places were assured at least ₹21,000.
The ITM list included names like Sankalp Marwah (21st for ₹21,000), Archit Garg (18th for ₹26,000), Vineet Kumar (17th for ₹26,000), Ranjeet Negi (15th for ₹32,000), Avinash Rajpal (14th for ₹32,000), Naveen Reddy (13th for ₹32,000), Nimit Shah (12th for ₹37,000), and Ameya Gokhale (11th for ₹37,000).
The defending champion, Abhishek Sharma, had also entered the tourney but failed to make it past the money line.
Final Table Results (INR)
Content & Images Courtesy: Online Poker News