Rajat Sharma Wins Inaugural Tilt Poker Series Main Event; Bangalore’s Krishna SM Takes Down Adda52 5K Bounty Event

The Tilt Poker Series, a joint collaboration between Rajeev Raut and Sangeeth ‘Samoh’ Mohan launched its inaugural tournament series on Dec 17^th. The six-day series featured six events and was held at the Rockets Poker Room, Bangalore.

The headline event of the tournament, the 2-day ₹30K Main Event began on Saturday with a minimum 50-player guarantee. After an encouraging start to the series, participation in the main event was a little disappointing with the event barely touching the guarantee put up by the organizers.

After two-days of intense poker action, Faridabad based Rajat Sharma (cover image) was crowned the Tilt Poker Series champion. Incidentally, this was Sharma`s first tournament victory, and a jubilant Rajat proudly posted on his Facebook account, “Wow my 1st win that too the main event of the Tilt Poker Series. Feeling super excited!!!”

Sharma defeated Archit Khandewal in the heads-up battle to claim the title with Prasanna Jayappa finishing 3^rd in the event. Jayappa was undoubtedly the most consistent player in the series, having made three consecutive final tables in the tournament.

The opening day of the main event saw several notable Indian pros in the field and the action was fast paced from the word go. Tournament organizer and poker pro Sangeeth ‘Samoh’ Mohan was the first casualty of the day, with many more players hitting the rails shortly. By Level 9, the tournament was down to just 2 tables and Prasanna Jayappa was leading the chip counts with 133,225 chips. However, by the time the final table was formed, Jayappa had fallen to 3^rd chip position with 111,300 chips.

The ten-handed final table began at 2 pm on Sunday with tournament organizer Rajeev Raut leading in chips and Rajat Sharma in second chip position. Another notable face in the final ten was Young Gun Aditya Sushant with a stack of 70,300 chips.

Here are the final table chip counts

1. Rajeev Raut – 161,100
2. Rajat Sharma – 119,400
3. Prasanna Jayappa – 111,300
4. Aditya Sushant – 70,300
5. Pradeep Nair – 68,800
6. Guruprasad Gupta – 65,800
7. Vinay B – 65,200
8. Soumya Agarwal – 35,600
9. Archit Khandelwal – 33,500
10. Nikunj Agarwal – 18,900

Archit Khandelwal who began the final table as the second shortest stack began his upward move almost immediately. He doubled up instantly and soon followed up by eliminating Pradeep Nair in 10^th place. Nikunj Agarwal was busted next in 9^th place.

Action calmed momentarily before Rajat Sharma scalped Guruprasad Gupta in 8^th position. With six players set to make it in the money, the tournament was now on the money bubble.

The tournament now saw the chips moving wildly and Aditya Sushant picked his spots perfectly to take the chip lead, while the start of day chip leader Rajeev Raut slipped further.

Sushant however, took a double hit when he lost two massive pots but managed to hang on, but it was not so for Raut who lost his tournament life on the money bubble. Sushant’s ace seven busted his pocket queens and Raut was out at 7^th place. However, Raut had the consolation of getting ₹48K, due to an earlier decided deal between 5 players.

Play continued and an aggressively playing Jayappa eliminated Vinay B at 6^th place and went on to bust Soumya Agarwal in 5^th position.

Aditya Sushant, who witnessed some choppy upswings and downswings with his stack, was finally sent to the rails at 4^th place, when his ace three came up short against Sharma`s queen jack. The online pro soon jumped into his online grind on a big Sunday with the Double Vision Sunday major`s playing on PokerStars.

After a truly impressive and valiant play, Prasanna fell out at 3^rd place, prey to Rajat’s ace eight. Prasanna had pocket sevens and the board gave out .

Heads up play lasted a bare 30 minutes, until the fateful hand. On the final hand, Archit moved all in with his . Rajat called with . The board was headed in one direction only and that was Rajat’s way with .

Congratulations to Rajat, Archit and Prasanna for making history at the first ever Tilt Poker Series Main event!

Tilt Poker Series ₹30K Main Event Results

1. Rajat Sharma
2. Archit Khandelwal
3. Prasanna Jayappa
4. Aditya Sushant
5. Soumya Agarwal
6. Vinay B
7. Rajeev Raut
8. Guruprasad Gupta
9. Nikunj Agarwal
10. Pradeep Nair

PokerGuru spoke to Rajat after the event. Here’s the short interview with the winner of the inaugural Tilt Poker Series Main Event.

How does it feel to win the Main Event title of Tilt Poker Series?

It obviously feels great to win the Main Event of the Tilt Poker Series specially when the field is so strong. This is my 4th live tournament and winning it obviously makes it more special.

How was your experience at the inaugural Tilt Poker Series?

The experience has been great. The organizers I believe have managed to stage a wonderful tournament and I had a great weekend playing the 10k Freezout & the main event. Will definitely be back for their next event as well.

Do you play regularly? You prefer playing live or online?

I picked up poker a year and a half back. Initially it was some house cash games but it is the tournament structure that excites me more. I also play on PokerStars but because of my work commitment I cant put in the volumes. In fact I had planned to play the 3k Freezout and 5K rebuy as well at Tilt Poker but because of work I could only make it to 2 events. I ended up min cashing 1 and winning the other.

Do you plan to come to the next Tilt Poker Events? Do you plan on attending any future live tournaments like the IPC in January, 2015?

I am definitely planning to play as many live tournaments as possible. In India you don’t have many opportunities to play live tournaments. Hopefully that will change in 2015. Next destination is obviously IPC.

Any specific hand/hands or incident at the event that stand out?

There were a lot of exciting hands and big pots but one hand stands out. UTG had raised and MP had flatted. I was the short stack with 12 BB. I shoved with A6 off. UTG immediately reshoved and I knew I was dead as MP folded. He tables 88. This was for my tournament life. Board ran out as KQQ10K. Wow that was some luck but then you need to be slightly lucky to make a deep run in any tournament.

You final tabled the Deltin Jaqk Series Main Event also, what is the main difference in the poker circuit at Goa and Bangalore?

The Deltin Jaqk final table was my 1st ever appearance at the final table and I was so card dead it was unbelievable. Unfortunately I bubbled that one. In Goa I saw the play being more LAG while Bangalore players were slightly more tighter. But then this game evolves online and live players are 1, 1 and half years behind. So you constantly need to be on forums like 2+2 to understand how the game is moving.

What is your favorite place to play poker?

My favorite poker destination is Goa. As whenever I have travelled overseas I have never played poker in any of the Casinos primarily because I picked up this game not so long ago. But going forward whenever I travel I intend to include a day of Poker in my itinerary.

Thanks Rajat for taking the time to talk to us and best for the nest series!

On the same day, Sunday, Dec 21, another side event, the Adda52 5K Bounty event also played out. Krishna SM from Bangalore emerged winner, after beating a player field of 54 runners.

The Tilt Poker Series inaugural tournament concluded today with Narendra Bam winning India’s first-ever ‘Dealers Only’ event.

That’s it for our coverage of the Tilt Poker Series and congratulations once again to all the winners!