IPC August Edition: Arsh Grover Makes First Live Tournament Cash, Wins Record-Breaking 10K Weekend Kickoff For ₹6.8 Lakhs

The second event of the series, 10K Weekend Kickoff shattered all previous records, when it registered a total of 319 entries that had the poker room’s 24 tables packed to the hilt. The previous record was made at IPC April, which had registered 308 entries.

Online player, Arsh Grover (cover image) made history for overcoming that entry-field to win the event for ₹6.8 Lakhs. The young Delhi-based player is mostly busy online under the name “bigggTymeR” and though he has been to the IPC thrice, this was not only his first win, but also his first live tournament cash. He spoke about his performance saying, “I came back after the third break with 31K in chips at 3K bb and chipped up to 400K in three levels with just one showdown till the bubble burst. I think this shows that poker is indeed a game of skill :)”.

Lokesh B was runner up, collecting ₹4.12 Lakhs after a heads up play that lasted 40 minutes.

The huge entry-field saw the top 32 players making the money with the min-cash being worth ₹15,000.

Tournament Recap

The cards were in the air at 7 pm sharp, with 251 entries and almost another 80 – 90 more waiting to get in. Several known faces were visible including Amit Jain, Aditya Sushant, Kanishka Samant, Anudeep Srinivas, Haresh Kukreja, Dhaval Mudgal, Danish Shaikh, Sahil Agarwal, Shravan Chhabria, Muskan Sethi and Romit Advani, who has just returned from a deep run at the APPT 9.

Eliminations came fast and furious. Yesterday’s luck deserted actor Kunal Khemu and he was out within the first three-quarters of the hour, followed by Dhaval Mudgal. The eliminations continued unabated thereafter.

In less than 2 hours, the field was down to 200 and by midnight it had quickly dwindled to just 50 players.

At 2:05 am, hand-for-hand play began, as the clock was stopped to reach the bubble, with just 33 players left. That onus came to Adda52 Team Spades Pro Amit Jain, who busted in 33^rd place, falling at the hands of Amol N. Jain with moved all-in with 33,000 and Amol N with called from the button. The board displayed allowing Amol to take the pot and Jain had lost his tournament life.

Close on his heels, Gagan Juneja and Dhruv Acharya hit the rails at 32^nd and 31^st places respectively.

In the next 2 hours, another 20 players hit the rails and finally after Jujhar Kochhar bubbled the final table, the last 10 were found with chip counts that read as follows.

Final Table Chip Counts

1. Dinesh Kukreja – 549,000
2. Lokesh B – 426,000
3. Niranjan NJ – 424,000
4. Arsh Grover – 317,000
5. Irshad Choudhary – 239,000
6. Ashish kasaraneni – 204,000
7. Nikita Luther – 84,000
7. Deepak D – 84,000
9. Balaji L – 58,000

In a natural progression, smallest stack Balaji L was the first casualty at the final table. Niranjan NJ held and Balaji had . The board rolled out and Balaji was out at 9^th place, with ₹63,000 for consolation.

Niranajan however, could not sustain and he followed Balaji at 8^th place, eliminated by Lokesh B.

Irshad Chaudhary, Deepak D and Dinesh Kukreja, all busted, at 7^th, 6^th and 5^th places respectively.

It was 5:45 am, when the only lady in the event, Nikita Luther was eliminated in 4^th place by online grinder Arsh Grover. Luther’s proved to be weaker than Arsh’s . The board read out and Luther had lost her tournament life.

Grover went on to eliminate Ashish Kasareneni at 3^rd place, leaving heads up play between himself and Lokesh B.

The finale began with both players almost equal in chips, with Arsh having 1,246,000 to Lokesh` 1,146,000. It took 40 minutes of play, where Lokesh B did manage a few pots initially, but Arsh kept eroding his stack with continuous double-ups.

In the final hand, the flop opened . Lokesh bet 50K and Grover called, with the turn revealing the . Lokesh bet 70K and Grover raised it to 170K. Lokesh shoved and Grover snap called, tabling the nut straight with . Lokesh turned over needing a six or three to make it. The river sent out the dashing Lokesh’s hopes and he settled for a runner-up position collecting ₹4.12 Lakhs for the effort.

Final Table Results

1. Arsh Grover – ₹6,80,000

2. Lokesh B – ₹4,12,000

3. Ashish Kasaraneni – ₹2,80,000

4. Nikita Luther – ₹1,90,000

5. Dinesh Kukreja – ₹1,48,000

6. Deepak D – ₹1,17,000

7. Irshad Chaudhary – ₹91,000

8. Niranjan NJ – ₹74,500

9. Balaji L – ₹ 63,000

Congratulations to Arsh Grover for his win in the IPC Aug 10K Kickoff. We will return at 7 pm tonight with the complete coverage of the ₹60,000 Highroller event, so don`t forget to check back again!