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Touted as the biggest online poker tournament in Indian history, ‘The Game Changer ₹2 Crores GTD’ surpassed all expectations including everyone behind India’s most trusted online poker site PokerBaazi! The tournament raked in a record-breaking prize pool of ₹3.7 Crores through a total of 3,777 entries (Day 1A – 1,015 entries, Day 1B – 1,149 entries and Day 1C – 1,613 entries) across three starting flights.
Out of the 386 hopefuls who will return for Day 2, only a total of 378 places will be paid with a min-cash good for ₹26,439. The overwhelming participation in the event ensured that colossal top prize of ₹50 Lakhs was superseded, and the first-ever Game Changer champion will walk away with a gigantic payout of over ₹60 Lakhs
Kamal ‘Krishiveer’ Bhatter emerged as the chip leader on the last starting flight, Day 1C, with a stack of 513,644. He is followed by Chintan ‘kianmnatnihc’ Naik (386,280) and Divij ‘divij24’ Soni (357,914), who round out the top three stacks.
Day 1A chip leader Vikrant ‘Vshetty1’ Shetty (558,609) retains his position as the overall chip leader and will be leading the 386 survivors to Day 2 which will kick off on February 24, Sunday at 6 pm.
Living up to its name, The Game Changer has captivated the imagination of the majority of the Indian poker fraternity, with players competing from all parts of the country. This historic event saw many new and familiar names in action and among the 386 runners who advanced to Day 2 were Team PokerGuru Ambassadors Nadeem ‘SpadeHunter’ Basha (362,748), Laksh ‘boomtlt23’ Pal Singh (150,652), Gokul ‘Nygma’ Raj (136,451), Jayjit ‘england’ Ray (130,101) and Ashish ‘OMG_spew’ Munot (64,143).
PokerGuru had also hosted a ‘PokerBaazi Game Changer Blog Contest’ which culminated on February 18 and awarded three Game Changer tickets to the winners. Nikunj ‘Livelynik2’ Doshi, Shashank ‘indianrat’ Desai and Faiz ‘AilaGaya’ Alam had won the contest, however, among the three, only Desai made the cut for Day 2 with 115,694 in chips.
Day 1B Recap
The last and final starting flight of The Game Changer, i.e. Day 1C, began at 8 pm on February 22, pulling in the largest field of 1,613 entries (868 unique and 745 re-entries) across all three flights. After 27 levels of continuous play, the field was whittled down to 186 runners all of whom will now come back for Day 2 on Sunday.
Many notables names were able to carry their stacks to Day 2 including Vikash ‘Viki.nse’ Khaitan (2,76,153), Shashank ‘AceKiller’ Shekhar (220,959), Varun ‘VnutsG’ Gupta (2,14,286), Sridhar ‘PlayEasy565’ Ramineni (213,619), Vinay ‘Vinstill’ B (2,03,970), PokerBaazi Team pro Abhisek ‘AbhisekPanda’ Panda (193,005), Sharad ‘Keenyle’ Rao (92,011), Akshay ‘sherlock52’ Nasa (82,000) and Abhinav ‘griezmann’ Iyer (69,615).
Similar to the two previous starting flights, many players were seen making use of the re-entry system which allowed each player up to five re-entries per flight. Some pros who made it to Day 2 on multiple bullets include Shubham ‘Shabbaking’ Singla (79,980), Paawan ‘ukissmyace’ Bansal (73,441), Jasven ‘JasvenSaigal’ Saigal (65,574) and Team Pokerbaazi pro Abhishek ‘AbhishekRathod’ Rathod (64,064).
Also utilizing the ‘Best Stack Forward’ format of the event, many players were seen participating in multiple flights in a bid to make it to Day 2 with a big stack. Young Gun Ujjwal ‘Mr_Robot’ Narwal had bagged 232,285 in chips on Day 1A but came back on Day 1B where he amassed an even bigger stack of 327,259. Rahul ‘pokeraddictive’ Kumar Meena was another player who had qualified through Day 1B with 59,542, which bettered to 187,139 on Day 1C.
Kamal ‘Krishiveer’ Bhatter bagged the biggest stack of Day 1C with 513,644 in chips. Chintan ‘kianmnatnihc’ Naik (386,280) and Divij ‘divij24’ Soni (357,914) finished a distant second and third on the leaderboard.
The historic event left a lot of poker players wanting more and social media was flooded with requests from players wanting an extra starting day added today. This goes on to show the impact that The Game Changer has had on the domestic poker community. Nevertheless, the overwhelming participation at this inaugural event is proof enough that the tournament was an unquestionable success and will certainly be making a comeback soon.
Top 10 Chip Counts At the End of Day 1C
1. Kamal ‘Krishiveer’ Bhatter – 513,644
2. Chintan ‘kianmnatnihc’ Naik – 386,280
3. Divij ‘divij24’ Soni – 357,914
4. Pranav ‘mithrandir16’ Anand – 351,677
5. Kunal ‘VasooliChacha’ Patni – 350,762
6. Jeet0 – 331,044
7. Sagar ‘onelove’ Tuteja – 329,215
8. Pawan ‘Peekay’ Kochhar – 320,466
9. Deepak ‘kakoji’ Bothra – 316,884
10. Twinkle ‘bigchill’ Singh – 308,909
With Vikrant ‘Vshetty1’ Shetty (558,609) still maintaining his position as overall chip leader, the top 10 stacks for Day 2 are as follows:
Top 10 Chip Counts For Day 2
Player Name | Chip Count | Starting Flight |
---|---|---|
Vikrant ‘Vshetty1’ Shetty | 558,609 | Day 1A |
Kamal ‘Krishiveer’ Bhatter | 513,644 | Day 1C |
Pranav ‘GarviGujarat’ Desai | 400,995 | Day 1B |
Kanav 'sokopa' Parwal | 389,417 | Day 1B |
Chintan ‘kianmnatnihc’ Naik | 386,280 | Day 1C |
Nadeem ‘SpadeHunter’ Basha | 362,748 | Day 1B |
Roshni ‘powertou’ Raj | 360,087 | Day 1A |
buster101 | 358,803 | Day 1B |
Divij ‘divij24’ Soni | 357,914 | Day 1C |
Himanshu ‘sherlocked24’ Singh | 357,910 | Day 1B |
Content & Image Courtesy: PokerBaazi
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