Online Rankings: Sanjay Chaudhary Conquers October, Tarun Goyal`s Dhanteras Score Sets New Records and Gets Him POY Crown

In this feature, we bring you to the top three weekly, monthly, and yearly performers every Sunday. These rankings are based on cumulative winnings (cashes). However, the rankings only include players registered to our online ranking system, so hurry up and register if you haven’t signed up on PokerGuru yet!

November is here, and the excitement from Diwali has carried over to the online poker scene. PokerBaazi’s 10th Anniversary celebrations may be over, but the action continues with their boosted guaranteed tournaments. Meanwhile, the first-ever Deltin Poker Tournament Grand just wrapped up at Casino Deltin Royale in Goa, generating a ton of buzz. And let’s not forget about Junglee Poker’s ₹5+ Crore GTD Grand Poker Party, which is reaching its climax tonight!

Natural8 India is also turning up the heat with massive prize pools and insane scores, making the Player of the Year (POY) race one of the most intense we’ve ever seen. The competition in Indian online poker is fierce right now, and we’re in for a wild ride as we head towards the end of the year!

Speaking of wild rides, Tarun Goyal, a WSOP bracelet winner and a legend in the Indian poker scene, had a Dhanteras to remember! His performance on the festival of wealth was so dominant it was a defining moment of the year, even overshadowing Sanjay Chaudhary’s incredible second-place finish in the G.O.A.T. 2024 (more on that later). Goyal went head-to-head with 928 of the world’s best in the ₹10+ Lakhs buy-in GGMillion$ Main Event on Natural8 India. His incredible 10th-place finish earned him a whopping ₹1.23 Crores, sending shockwaves through the poker community.

This incredible result launched Goyal to the top of the POY leaderboard. His annual winnings are now a mind-blowing ₹7.01 Crores, with profits of ₹5.40 Crores. He’s the first player to smash the ₹7 Crore mark in online winnings in a year – something many thought was impossible. Goyal has truly set a new standard for Indian poker. He now holds a commanding ₹1.10 Crore lead over Neel Joshi, who had been dominating the top spot for over seven months.

That eight-figure score also put Goyal at the top of the weekly leaderboard with ₹1.23 Crores in winnings (weekly profits – ₹1.03 Crores). He’s also the only player to rack up four eight-figure scores in a single year. And get this: Goyal topped both the winnings and profits leaderboards in August and September the only player to achieve this double whammy in 2024. He even came in at #3 for October with over ₹1.45 Crores in earnings (monthly profits – ₹1.14 Crores), most of which he won in just the last three days of the month.

After a long reign at the top, Young Gun Neel Joshi has been overtaken by Tarun Goyal in the POY race. But don’t write Joshi off just yet! He’s had a phenomenal year with ₹5.93 Crores in total winnings and ₹3.76 Crores in profit. Most of his winnings (₹5.08 Crores) came from Natural8 India, including an impressive 15 seven-figure prizes. The PokerStars India Ambassador has been taking a break from online play and took some time out to compete in the APPT Manila Championship in the Philippines. This resulted in a quieter October for him with ₹6.43 Lakhs in winnings and also marked the end of his time at the top of the POY leaderboard.

The most exciting story of the month has to be the rise of Sanjay Chaudhary. This under-the-radar PokerBaazi player was down ₹30 Lakhs by the middle of the month. But then, in an unbelievable turn of events, he finished second in the G.O.A.T. 2024. He made a heads-up deal with the champion, Kabir Chhatwal, who won ₹3.11 Crores, and Chaudhary walked away with a mind-blowing ₹4.14 Crores – the biggest single online payout in Indian poker history!

This incredible score obliterated previous records, surpassing Aayush Arya’s ₹2.76 Crores WSOP bracelet win and Nishaanth Shanmughasundaram’s ₹1.97 Crores haul in the Beijing Mystery Bounty Millions. Chaudhary’s record-breaking score launched him to #3 in the POY race, with ₹4.28 Crores in yearly winnings and ₹4.09 Crores in profit. This also put him at the top of the October leaderboard with ₹4.15 Crores in winnings and ₹4.14 Crores in profit.

With the POY race heating up, WSOP bracelet winner Aayush Arya is holding strong in fourth place. This Young Gun has had a fantastic year with ₹4.17 Crores in winnings and ₹2.59 Crores in profit. He’s been taking it easy this month, but with his skills and competitive fire, he’s still a major contender for the POY title.

Anant Purohit has been crushing it lately, climbing to #5 in the POY rankings with ₹4.08 Crores in annual winnings. This veteran player has been on a tear since his big win in Natural8 India’s Bounty Hunters HR Deepstack 525 in September. This week alone, he won an incredible ₹33.93 Lakhs, with about ₹31 Lakhs in profit from five deep runs, four of which were on Natural8 India. This put him second on the weekly leaderboard. His most impressive performance was a second-place finish in the Bounty Hunters HR 525, where he won ₹21.23 Lakhs on Saturday.

The POY leaderboard is stacked with top players, including Nishaanth Shanmughasundaram (#6 with ₹3.91 Crores), PokerGuru Staking coach Advait Rajguru (#7 with ₹3.91 Crores in winnings), G.O.A.T. 2024 champion Kabir Chhatwal (#8 with ₹3.50 Crores), Satyam Verma (#9 with ₹3.56 Crores), and Neeraj Sattawat (#10 with ₹3.29 Crores).

We also have big names like Sashank Chakravarthy, Mohak Kapoor (the annual TLB points leader), JaiKiran Kumar, Rising Star Aman Parakh, Rajneesh Thakur, Sagar Raj, three-time POY Young Gun Gaurav Sood, Manish Lakhotia, Young Gun Ashwin Vijay, and Vinay B all fighting for the top spot.

October was a breakthrough month for Kabir Chhatwal, who was already making waves with his win in The Summit in June and final table appearances in The MoneyMaker 86.0 and EndBoss 7.0. His biggest accomplishment yet was winning the G.O.A.T. 2024, the biggest-ever online tournament in Indian poker history, where he bagged a life-changing ₹3.11 Crores. This win pushed him to #8 in the POY rankings. Chhatwal also finished second on the October leaderboard with ₹3.11 Crores in winnings and ₹3.10 Crores in profit.

Mohammad Azhar, the first-ever National Poker Series India Main Event champion, also had a career-best performance with a third-place finish in the G.O.A.T. 2024, earning ₹1 Crore. He was initially ranked third on the October leaderboard, but a late surge by POY leader Tarun Goyal pushed him to #4, with total winnings of ₹1.01 Crore and profits of ₹1 Crore.

Other notable players on the October leaderboard (many of them G.O.A.T. finalists) include Jugal Advani, who finished #5 with ₹82.69 Lakhs, POY #10 Neeraj Sattawat, ranked #6 with ₹77.52 Lakhs, and poker streamer Akshay Kapoor, ranked #7 with ₹71.25 Lakhs.

Surbhit Grover had a fantastic Sunday, winning PokerBaazi’s The MoneyMaker 90.0, India’s longest-running single-flight ₹1 Crore GTD tournament, for a career-high ₹15 Lakhs. This online regular from Mohali first made a name for himself in 2021 by winning Adda52’s ATOC Mini Main Event. This was his second seven-figure score. Including this win and his other deep runs, Grover’s total Sunday winnings reached an amazing ₹15.08 Lakhs.

By the end of the week, Grover had earned ₹15.16 Lakhs, with ₹14.19 Lakhs in profit from his win, a final table appearance, and four other deep runs. This amazing performance earned him the third spot on the weekly leaderboard.

The week’s other top scorers were Naman Agrawal (weekly winnings – ₹8.99 Lakhs), Myron Pereira (weekly winnings – ₹8.92 Lakhs) and Advait Rajguru (weekly winnings – ₹8.34 Lakhs).

Weekly Online Rankings (October 27 – November 2)

Monthly Online Rankings (October 1 – October 31)

Yearly Online Rankings (January 1 – November 2)

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