Indian Challengers at WSOP 2014: Aditya ‘Intervention’ Agarwal Spills the Beans on the WSOP Show

Poker in India is synonymous with the name Aditya “Intervention” Agarwal (cover image). Pioneer, mentor and amazing player, Intervention has not only had an extremely successful run, but shows no signs of slowing down anywhere in the near future.

Intervention has single-handedly been responsible for the rise and spread of poker in India, giving the game its respectable due.

He is not just a professional, but an icon for aspiring poker players, many who he has mentored, have themselves turned pros today.

It all began in the US, where Aditya went to study computer engineering at Drexel University, Philadelphia. He had Mihail Stoykov as a roommate and both of them got interested in the game, playing mostly online and small stakes games. It was at a time when Party Poker, an online site was running and Aditya played on it.

Around 2005, Aditya hit a jackpot of $45k in a big online tournament and the win, which amounted to almost a year’s worth of tuition fees and expenses, got him thinking seriously about a career in poker.

His forays in poker were naturally playing havoc with his education and therefore Aditya changed his major twice from the highly demanding course of computer engineering to metal engineering, finally settling for business management. To his credit, he completed his under grad program, though over a span of 5 years, as he kept taking advantage of the university’s allowance of 6-month sabbaticals to concentrate on poker.

In the US Aditya found a mentor in Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi, one of the most successful online and live tournament players. Mizzi taught and staked Aditya during his early days.

By 2008, Aditya hit the zenith by being amongst the world’s top ten online MTT players, an achievement that was just the beginning of his exploits.

A voracious internet gamer, Aditya is one of the most widely acclaimed and respected high stakes MTT player in the online community.

To those who wonder how the moniker “Intervention” came about, actually Aditya wanted “Divine Intervention” but was forced to keep just one word by the rules of an online gaming site. He chose “Intervention” and it certainly seems as if divinity chose him, with his long continued successful run.

About 5 years ago, Intervention returned to India and conceptualized pokerguru.in, realizing the need for a legit and respectable platform to enhance and address poker playing in the country. He mentored a number of promising young players, incorporating them in his home team of PokerGuru and many of them are today names to reckon with in the national and international poker scene.

Intervention has inherited his flair for speculation from the senior Mr. Bal Krishan Agarwal, who is a reputed Bridge player and a pharmaceutical business owner. Few are aware that Intervention’s father, Mr. B K Agarwal has a passion for racehorses and owns a dozen of the magnificent beasts, at the Royal Calcutta Turf Club. Berlusconi one of their racehorses, recently won the 1,600m Governor’s Cup, in early 2014 and it was Intervention himself, who collected the winning trophy.

The quiet and down to earth pro does not display any arrogance, despite his huge success at so young an age.

29-year-old Intervention is certainly no accidental triumph, his story reveals a gargantuan dedication and observation of game skills, strategies and maneuvers. He spends most of his non-playing time studying the game and noticing details. And obviously, this hard work has definitely paid off.

Intervention spends his time with family and friends, when not playing. Among his close circle of friends are Chris Dombrowski, Russell Crane and Jeffrey ‘Jeff’ Papola to name a few. The group can be often found studying hands and discussing play strategies of past events, in order to get further insight on the game.

This was Intervention’s 9^th visit to WSOP and here, we bring you his latest experience at the poker carnival. He shares his thoughts about the increasing Indian participation, the grandeur of the event and the expenses required for attending such tournaments…

This was your 9th consecutive WSOP appearance. Tell us your personal motivation to take part in WSOP. Do you like playing in Vegas? You have played all across the globe. How in your opinion is Vegas different from the other big international poker destinations?

It is pretty expensive travelling around for tournaments. But WSOP in Las Vegas offers a plethora events right next to each other, with big prize money and lots of glory. Being a professional tournament player, it is really a no-brainer to go for WSOP.

I do enjoy Vegas a lot, especially since its one place where they cater to poker players. I just feel very much at home each year there, now that I have been going there while all the top pros, both online and live are in Vegas during the series.

What has been your most memorable WSOP trip ever and why? Do share some highlights from your previous WSOP outings.

Highlights for me at the series have to be my main event run, when I got 96th. I got to play some on featured table too deep in the main, which was quite thrilling. I was quite nervous back then, but today I look forward to another opportunity like that.

The Indian participation in big international tournaments has seen a sudden spike. What do you attribute this to? Did you hang out a lot with the Indian players this time around?

Poker has grown a lot last few years with more legal poker clubs coming up in different cities. Last couple of years has seen a huge surge in India with the number of people playing the game ever increasing. Lot of the players have worked hard and are now turning pro. Hence, there has been an increase in the Indian numbers, 7 Indians played the main event this year, and I see this number easily being over 20 next year.

Apart from poker, what all do you guys do to unwind in Vegas?

This year I went and played night golf and bowling few times. We went to Palms theatre next door and watched all the summer blockbusters and went out for a bunch of awesome meals.

Do share some funny incidents from the time you spent with the Indian gang.

‘Donkab0mber’ should be renamed ‘drunkabumber’, that’s all I want to say on that matter!

Were you happy with your play at this years` WSOP? You had several deep runs this series; the most prominent was the 16th place finish in event 44 – $1,500 NLH. Did you ever feel that you were winning the bracelet for sure?

I was happy for the most part, after a slow start I thought I played really hard in all the events. Deep in the 1500 having a bunch chips I was feeling pretty confident of final tabling and making a run. Busting 16th was very disappointing, since it is pretty difficult navigating such huge fields and having a shot at a bracelet.

There seems to be a lot of interest in the game, which certainly seems to be growing fast. What can we learn from our western counterparts and more mature poker markets?

We can learn to reduce the rake. Also, people try to get into poker administration here, a lot more than in other places where people just want to play poker, I think the younger generation will be better off focusing on playing than running games.

Any important highlights, you would like to share about this experience, any advice for players planning to play the WSOP?

Plan ahead, make sure you have comfortable accommodation and enough cash to last you your trip. If you are worried about these things then you’re going to struggle playing your A game.

Lastly, what are your poker plans for the rest of year?

I am still planning out my rest of the year calendar and right now I am on the fence for a lot of things, most likely I will not be going to Macau, but will be going to EPT Barcelona, that’s the whole thing I am kind of sure as of now. Being the 100th EPT, it should be pretty big.