Gurpal Nanda Leads IPC 50k Online Highroller Final Table

They said it will be the best of both worlds and last night at Spartan Poker, half that statement came true in the IPC 50k Online Highroller tournament. An exciting India-first initiative by the country’s fastest growing poker site, this tournament would have participants playing in two phases.The online aspect of the tourney took place last night 2 Oct at 10 pm and played down to the final six participants.

When the final six remained, the tournament was paused and these finalists will return less than a week later to play down to the winner. The unique aspect of this being that the tournament will culminate as a live final table to be played in the India Poker Championship’s October edition which will take place from 07-11 October in Goa. Gurpal Nanda from New Delhi leads the final six as the monster chipleader with well over 2 lacs chips. The final table is expected to be begin at 4:00 pm on 08 October at the Deltin Royale poker room.

There was plenty of excitement when this hybrid tournament was initially announced weeks ago. It started to build up momentum and while the player registration was slow to begin with, it eventually ended with what can be only be described as a pretty terrific turnout for an inaugural event like this. There were about 18 registrations till the evening of 2 Oct which swelled up to 28 when the tournament kicked off at 10:00 pm. Considering the extended late registration period of 2 hours and the deep structure of the event, it was no surprise that many players decided to join in late. In those two hours the number grew and eventually an impressive 49 players was the count for this Highroller event.

And then there were Six

With a deep structure and plenty of chips to play with, it seemed likely that a hand-over-hand situation would lead to that bust out and so it was. 30 minutes into the tournament it was newly minted Team Spartan Pro Sangeeth ‘Samoh’ Mohan (9560) who into it with his against his opponent ‘bluffmeplz’ (6809) who held . Preflop raises were made and called when the flop spread out . Both players played it coy and checked to the turn . This was the street where it all went in and a nothing river meant Samoh’s set of Queens would cause the first elimination of the night.

‘Divyesh’ who was another regular player on Spartan Poker made a swift double up very early on. The Mumbai player who won his seat through one of the many High Roller satellites conducted in the runup to this event. ‘Divyesh’ had pocket Jacks () which hit trips on the flop of which also gave his opponent ‘unicorn77’ () mid pair. A check from Divyesh to lay the trap and a beautiful came up giving 2 pairs to unicorn77 who had no hesitation putting it in. on the river sealed the deal for Divyesh and he jumped quickly into being one of the early chip leaders in the event.

As players were joining in the late registration so too were many who were getting busted out. That escalated at the completion of late registration but eventually we had our unofficial final table of eight players which were:-

yoyoyo

caprese512

AlPacino

devvrat89

divyesh

keenyle

vinstill

Astonish

‘vinstill’ and ‘Astonish’ were the last two eliminations before the final six were left and their eliminations happened in spectacular fashion! ‘yoyoyo’ had surged into the chiplead and prior to this hand was with a stack of 1,11,139 whereas ‘vinstill’ possessed 48,975 and Astonish was overall 4th in chips with 63,975.On a board, all players went all in on the turn. And these are the hands that were revealed:-

yoyoyo – for a straight Ace to Five

vinstill – for a set of Threes

Astonish – for Aces up

With those two eliminations ‘yoyoyo’ was not only responsible for the remaining finalists heading to Goa but with that massive pot of 1,79,175, he also ensures that his is the overall monster chiplead (2,25,089) when the live final table gets underway on 8 Oct in IPC Goa.

Here’s what the final six and their stacks look like

1. Gurpal ‘yoyoyo’ Nanda – 225,089

2. aparna ‘caprese512′ Sthanunathan – 79,654

3. Anil ‘AlPacino’ Adiani – 73,624

4. Devvrat ‘devvrat89′ Himatsingka – 53,552

5. Divyesh ‘divyesh’ Jain – 29,958

6. Sharad ‘keenyle’ Rao – 28,123

The same stacks as above will be carried forward to the live final table and the clock will be rolled back in Goa to ensure that all players have at least an average 30BB stack and blind levels will be 40 minutes in duration. All these players are assured of a minimum payday of ₹1,35,000 while it will be a massive ₹8,00,000 up top for the winner. Here’s the full list of payouts:-

1st Place – ₹8,00,000

2nd Place – ₹4,50,000

3rd Place – ₹3,00,000

4th Place – ₹2,25,000

5th Place – ₹1,75,000

6th Place – ₹1,35,000

PokerGuru congratulates all six of the finalists for making the money and wishes them good luck for the culmination of this event. The excitement will continue in just about a week and we will bring the final update on the outcome of this unique IPC 50k Highroller tournament right here on PokerGuru so stay tuned!