Mumbai Anchors Bag ₹75 Lakhs as Pocket52 Poker Sports League Season 5 Champions!

The Pocket52 Poker Sports League (PSL) – Season 5 culminated on August 19 at the Novotel Resort and Spa in Candolim, Goa. Team Mumbai Anchors stole the thunder, emerging as first-time champions at PSL. Having come strikingly close to shipping the PSL – Season 3 (Virtual) in February 2021, the team, captained by Pocket52 pro Laksh Pal Singh and owned by Mehul Shah, Puneet Mehra and Rishikesh Shah, made a thunderous run to the finish line, notching up the grand prize of ₹75 Lakhs!

Sharing the spotlight of victory were the team members, Pros Akshay Nasa and Ankit Wadhawan, wildcard entry Alok Birewar, Women Qualifier Simran Malhotra, and the Qualifier squad – Dhirendra Kumar, Honey Bijlani, Nitin Gulati, Nikaas Masani, Shravan Kapoor, and Avinash Tauro.

The journey to the top was full of challenges for Mumbai Anchors, which was part of the six competing teams. Officially kicking off on May 4, PSL – Season 5 offered players the chance to seize glory and a share from a guaranteed prize pool of ₹1.50 Crores. The overwhelming response was evident, as over 31,000 total entrants enthusiastically signed up and participated in 34 Online Qualifiers, including three Women Qualifiers hosted on Pocket52 between May 4 and June 25. From this huge group, 34 players made their way into the respective six teams, setting the stage for an exhilarating face-off held in Goa from August 17 to 19.

The thrilling Live matches involved Mix SnGs, Category matches, and the Main Event. As the Grand Finale approached, teams Delhi Czars and Goan Nuts held the joint lead, each with an impressive 104 points. However, Mumbai Anchors pipped the competition to whisk away the championship trophy. The team entered the Grand Finale with a substantial chip advantage that they carried the advantage to the finish line. The climactic heads-up match saw them clash with Delhi Czars, culminating in their momentous victory.

PSL even shared bytes of the winning team lifting the trophy.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CwNSTe3K_k0/

Here are the top-3 team standings and prize money won:

Winner: Mumbai Anchors (Captained by Laksh Pal Singh) – ₹75 Lakhs

Runner-up: Delhi Czars (Captained by Vaibhav Sharma) – ₹50 Lakhs

Second Runner-up: Goan Nuts (Captained by Dhaval Mudgal) – ₹25 Lakhs

Sahil Mahboobani from Delhi Czars emerged as the well-deserving Player of the Series, collecting a trophy and ₹2 Lakhs in prize money.

Simran Malhotra was declared the Women Player of the Series.

The nail-biting action was strea on the popular Indian OTT platform Jio Cinema, the official streaming partner for the league.

Talking about the PSL – Season 5, Laksh Pal Singh, captain of Mumbai Anchors, said, “This year, the production team of PSL has really outdone themselves. From every reel to every Instagram story to every update, I have to say the content was fabulous. Obviously couldn’t have done it without your ever-so-talented team!”

Singh also lauded his team members, “I’m so proud of you guys- every point earned by each of you was crucial to us winning and reaching the finale. I gotta say one thing about my team, though, everyone was really into it, the togetherness and team spirit was really evident, and I think from day 1, we manifested the win when we took that picture near the trophy.”

Summing up how PSL – Season 5 fared, Prajit Ghambir, COO of PSL, said, “PSL as a property along with Pocket52 has created waves in the Indian poker industry. This can be backed by the record-breaking participants witnessed during the qualifiers. This will set a benchmark for all future seasons of the league.”

While Pocket52 was the title sponsor of PSL – Season 5, Novotel Resort and Spa was the Venue Partner, and JioCinema the official Streaming Partner.

Other partners include, Monster Poker Community, BRB Chips, Jimmy’s Cocktail Mixers, Hustle energy drink, MAKA DI, Borecha, and Samsara.

Pocket52 Poker Sports League Season 5

With Pocket52 as the title sponsor, PSL-5 set a tall benchmark as the world’s largest poker league in terms of prize pool and participation. Season 5 featured a guaranteed prize pool of ₹1.50 Crores while also ensuring ₹50 Lakhs worth of assured rewards for the top 1000 players on the leaderboard of the general qualifiers. Each player making it to the teams won an all-expenses-paid trip to Goa.

Following is the sequence of PSL – Season 5

> May 4 – June 25: General Qualifiers on the Pocket52 mobile app

> June 23 – 25: Women Qualifiers

> July 8: Player auction

> July 22 – August 10: Virtual Matches on the Pocket52 desktop app

> August 17 – 19: Live Finale

> August 18: Main Event

> August 19: Grand Finale

Following were the participating six teams:

Mumbai Anchors: Laksh Pal Singh (Captain), Puneet Mehra, Mehul Shah, and Rishikesh Shah (Owners), Akshay Nasa and Ankit Wadhawan (Pro), Alok Birewar (Wildcard), Dhirendra Kumar, Honey Bijlani, Nitin Gulati, Nikaas Masani, Shravan Kapoor and Avinash Tauro (Qualifiers), Simran Malhotra (Women Qualifier)

Delhi Czars: Shardul Parthasarathi (Captain), Sailesh Sigatapu and Jayaaditya Pinnapureddy (Owners), Sahil Mahboobani and Nishant Sharma (Pros), Ankit Jajodia (Wild Card), Radhika Shankar (Women Qualifier), Ashish Shukla, Saransh Garg, Jaykant Kumar Sahni, Madhab Pal, Ankush Garg and Vikash Masani (Qualifiers)

Goan Nuts: Dhaval Mudgal (Captain), Shashank Jain, Ravi Goel and Aman Dhamija (Owners), Vishal Bajaj (Wild Card), Sreekanth Narayan and Ashish Ahuja (Pros), Milena Mezhuieva (Women Qualifier), Ananda Dhibhar, Siddharth Karia, Mustakim Sekh, Ankit Jain, Suneeth Vinod Kalmady, Sachin Barha (Qualifiers)

Gujarat Falcons: Romit Adwani (Captain), Jaydeep Dawer, Premnath Kasinath, and V Ramakrishna (Owners), Kanishka Samant and Zarvan Tumboli (Pros), Kanchan Sharma (Wild Card), Shuchi Chamaria (Women Qualifier), Adwait Pol, Bhairab Ghosh, Akshay Kapoor, Ashutosh Yadav, Penumacha Srinivas Raju, Sivakumar Koudishetra (Qualifiers)

Lucknow Kings: Gaurav Sood (Captain), Samit Garg, Mandeep Malhotra and Raj Juneja (Owners), Ujjwal Narwal (Wild Card), Paawan Bansal and Siddhanth Kripalani (Pros), Priya Agarwal (Women Qualifier), Akhil Rajkumar Choudhary, Samyak Sethi, Satyam Verma, Koushik Ghosh, Rahul Sikka (Qualifiers)

Deccan Aces: Vaibhav Sharma (Captain), Vijay Madduri and Sam Reddy (Owners), Kunal Patni (Wild Card), Mithun Mahesh and Arjanveer Singh Chadha (Pros), Ishita Arora (Women Qualifier), Arjun Singh Bhaudauria, Sanjay Sethi, Mohsin Sheikh, Kapeesh Chaubey, Kashish Durgiya and Ram Ratan Jangid (Qualifiers)

PSL – Season 5 – Live Installment in Goa!

The Live instalment of PSL Season 5 took off on August 17 with Mixed SnGs, which began at noon and witnessed respective teams battle it out to earn points. The Mix SnGs were followed by the Category SnGs, namely the Captains Match, Owners Match, two Pros Matches, Wildcard Match, Women Qualifier Match, and six Qualifier Matches.

The Main Event was held on August 18, followed by the Grand Finale the next day.

Mixed SnG Results

Kanchan Sharma topped the Mix SnG on the feature table to collect 5 points. Similarly, Akshay Kapoor (Table 2), Arjun Singh Bhaudauria (Table 2), Ankit Wadhawan (Table 3), Laksh Pal Singh (Table 4), Shivakumar Koudishetra (Table 5), Jaykant Kumar Sahni (Table 6), Alok Birewar (Table 7), Vikash Masani (Table 8), Puneet Mehra (Table 9), and Vishal Bajaj (Table 10) topped their respective tables earning 5 points each for their teams.

Category Match Results

Captains Match: Vaibhav Sharma of Deccan Aces won the Category SnG Captains Match, getting 5 points for his team. Following Sharma was Gaurav Sood from Lucknow Kings with 4 points, Laksh Pal Singh with 3 points, with Delhi Czars’ Shardul Parthasarathi (2 points) and Goan Nuts’ Dhaval Mudgal (1 point) also earning points for their performance.

Owners Match: Jaydeep Dawer from Gujarat Falcons won the Owner’s Match with 5 points. Following Dawer was Puneet Mehra (4 points) from Mumbai Anchors, Goan Nuts’ Shashank Jain (3 points), Raj Juneja (2 points) from Lucknow Kings and Delhi Czars’ Sailesh Sigatapu (1 point).

Wildcard Match: Alok Birewar (5 points) for Mumbai Anchors, Kunal Patni (4 points) from Deccan Aces, Ankit Jajodia (3 points) from Delhi Czars, Vishal Bajaj (2 points) of Goan Nuts, Lucknow Kings’ Ujjwal Narwal (1 point) earned points for their teams.

Pro Matches: Two Pro Matches were played, with Sreekanth Narayan (Goan Nuts) and Paawan Bansal (Lucknow Kings) topping Match 1 and Match 2, respectively, adding 5 points each to their team’s tally.

Qualifier Matches: A total of six Qualifier Matches and an additional Women’s Qualifier Match were played.

Simran Malhotra (Mumbai Anchors) won the Women’s Qualifier match, notching up 5 points.

Rahul Sikka (Match 1), Shravan Kapur (Match 2), Akshay Kapoor (Match 3), Honey Bijlani (Match 4), Arjun Singh Bhadauriya (Match 5), and Neerav Bhatia (Match 6) topped the respective Qualifier matches, contributing 5 points each to their team`s tally.

Main Event Highlights

The Main Event was held on August 18. The tournament was held across 12 tables, involving all the participating team players. The top 15 finishes earned points for their respective teams.

After intense action, Shashank Jain from Goan Nuts won the Main Event MTT, garnering 15 points for his team.

Sahil Mahboobani of Delhi Czars took the second position with 14 points, with Lucknow Kings’ Satyam Verma rounding out the podium with 13 points.

Following are the top 15 performers and the points they collected.

Grand Finale Highlights

The Grand Finale, aka the Final Table, was held on August 19 from 6.15 PM onwards. Mumbai Anchors began the day on the top of the pack. The starting stacks were based on the team’s points tally coming into the finals.

Grand Finale Chip Counts Basis Points Collected

1. Mumbai Anchors – 199 points (250 BBs)
2. Delhi Czars – 192 points (150 BBs)
3. Goan Nuts – 182 points (100 BBs)
4. Lucknow Kings – 175 points (60 BBs)
5. Deccan Aces – 143 points (40 BBs)
6. Gujarat Falcons – 129 points (30 BBs)

Grand Finale Recap

Already in pole position, Mumbai Anchors added more to their stack after Pro Akshay Nasa won a few quick hands.

Lucknow Kings and Delhi Czars made several impressive moves to improve their position.

Gujarat Falcons was the first team to be eliminated after Kanchan Sharma clashed with Akshay Nasa. Sharma called from the small blind with and Nasa jammed with . Sharma snap-called but was disappointed to see the pan out on the board, resulting in her team`s elimination.

On the very next hand, Mumbai Anchors booted Deccan Aces out, with their pocket aces dominating the latter’s ace-six, and the board brought no help.

Lucknow Kings was eliminated next, bursting the bubble and leaving the remaining teams in the money.

By then, Mumbai Anchors sat with an overwhelming chip lead while Goan Nuts was barely left with chips. The team was eliminated shortly thereafter when their could not stand up against Mumbai Anchors’ on the runout , with the river card bringing a straight for Mumbai Anchors. The commentators called it a “₹25 Lakhs worth Deuce.”

Goan Nuts’ elimination also set up the heads-up duel between Mumbai Anchors and Delhi Czars.

Early on, Delhi Czars scored a much-needed double-up in a pivotal hand. Short-stacked, the team jammed, and Mumbai Anchors called. The team held to Mumbai Anchors’ The board ran out , giving Delhi Czars the pot.

However, Mumbai Anchors swiftly brought things to an end. On the fateful hand, both teams were all-in, with Mumbai Anchors holding to Delhi Czars’ and the dealer panning out . Mumbai Anchors paired their Jack on the river, sealing their fate as the PSL Season 5 champions!

Grand Finale Results

1. Mumbai Anchors – ₹75,00,000
2. Delhi Czars – ₹50,00,000
3. Goan Nuts – ₹25,00,000
4. Lucknow Kings
5. Deccan Aces
6. Gujarat Falcons

Poker Sports League – A Distinguished Record

PSL, India’s biggest poker league, officially debuted in May 2017, with Season 1 that featured 12 teams. Delhi Panthers won the inaugural season, bagging ₹1.50 Crores in prize money.

Season 2 was held in May 2018, and Goan Nuts walked away as the champions, claiming the top prize of ₹2 Crores.

Season 3 was held virtually, with online qualifiers running from November 25 to December 9, 2022, and the League Matches were delayed to April (20-24) 2022, with Deccan Aces emerging as the winning team.

Kolkata Kings won Season 4 for ₹72 Lakhs in April 2022. The league was hosted for the first time in a “phygital format” and live-streamed on the OTT platform VOOT.

Content & Images Courtesy: Poker Sports League