Sunday Online Railbird Report: Pentakota Ships Millionaire Legends; Narwal, Bansal & Grover Win the Other Flagships

The first Sunday of March unfolded one of the most intense days for poker this year, yet. At a time when the DPT Xpress was playing down to culmination with Deepak Raina and Abhishek Sharma winning the last of the series’ titles, the action was equally hectic on the virtual felts.

The Sunday showstopper was the Spartan Poker-hosted The Millionaire Legends ₹1.5 Crores GTD, where 653 hopefuls (Day 1A – 286, Day 1B – 367) got playing across two starting flights. The tournament generated a guarantee smashing prize pool of ₹1.63 Crores and only 118 of them (Day 1A – 50, Day 1B – 68), which included 107 unique players survived through to Day 2. With the top 100 places assured a payout, the fight was over the prestigious title. When the dust settled, it was none other than the former Millionaire champion, Manoj ‘MRBLUE’ Pentakota holding the title!

Pentakota shares a unique history with the tournament – he had in September 2016, sprung to fame after winning the first-ever Millionaire for ₹10.61 Lakhs. Just like the tournament that has grown much bigger in proportion since then, the Vishakhapatnam-based player, too, has worked up quite a resume of wins for himself. In addition to owning two DPT titles, and scoring a title win at the 2017 APT Macau Head Hunter, Pentakota has numerous online laurels to his name. He’s been on a hot run this year and won PokerBaazi’s G.O.A ₹20 Lakhs GTD for ₹4.32 Lakhs on January 29. Pentakota grabbed the headlines again last Sunday when he took down the Adda52 Millions AF for ₹7.04 Lakhs. Pentakota had carried two stacks to Day 2, and he took one of them all the way to the top as he defeated another former Millionaire champion – Mayank ‘TheBoogeyMan’ Jaggi heads-up to pocket a jaw-dropping ₹40.81 Lakhs! The other stack got him the 56th place finish worth ₹52,240, taking his cumulative winnings in the event to ₹41.33 Lakhs.

Jaggi who had joined the elite Millionaire club in December 2017 is a site regular. Back in January 2018, he had won the IOPC#36 Super High Roller ₹50 Lakhs GTD for ₹15 Lakhs. Jaggi has an equally enviable resume of live cashes and though he lost his chance to his second Millionaire title yesterday night, he has, with his runner-up finish padded his bankroll by ₹24.48 Lakhs!

Third-place finisher ‘Thea’ posted two scores, earning ₹14.69 Lakhs for placing second, in addition to posting a 10th place finish for ₹1.14 Lakhs, making for total winnings of ₹15.83 lakhs.

Sathish ‘Jaqkten’ Ananth (4th for ₹9.79 Lakhs) Aditya ‘Yennefer’ Agarwal (5th for ₹6.53 Lakhs), Venkatesh ‘Borissss’ Mukundan (7th for ₹3.18 Lakhs), and Manish ‘thekid’ Lakhotia (9th for ₹2.04 Lakhs) were the other prominent pros who featured on The Millionaire Legends final table.

Shining along Pentakota was another seasoned name of the domestic circuit, Raghav Bansal. Bansal, who plays as ‘thatssosick’ on Spartan Poker, dominated a 763 entry-field (343 unique, 166 re-entries and 254 rebuys) to win the Sunday SuperStack ₹35 Lakhs GTD for ₹6.43 Lakhs. The event itself had a profitable run and accrued a prize pool of ₹38.15 Lakhs. Bansal’s final opponent in the event was Arsh ‘BigggTymeR’ Grover, who earned a payout of ₹5.56 Lakhs after missing the title.

Both Bansal and Grover seemed to take turns to collect more accolades. Grover who plays as ‘Button_Hai_Bro’ on PokerBaazi dominated a field of 619 entries (319 unique, 300 re-entries) and outran PokerGuru Ambassador Devvrat ‘flopCheck’ Arya (runner-up for ₹4.10 Lakhs) heads-up to win the PPL #15 BSS SuperStack 30 Lakhs GTD for another ₹5.84 Lakhs. The tournament surpassed its guarantee to generate a ₹30.95 Lakhs prize pool.

The PokerBaazi Premier League (PPL) is well underway now, and on Sunday, The Endeavour ₹50 Lakhs GTD, ran two starting flights. Day 1A logged in 545 hopefuls (347 unique and 198 re-entries) and Young Gun Gaurav ‘gaug17’ Sood (402,443) topped the 53 players who qualified from the flight. ‘a_one’ (390,364) and Aditya ‘Istredd’ Agarwal (350,950) were the other two top stacks advancing on Day 1A.

Meanwhile, Day 1B registered another 459 entries (266 unique and 193 re-entries) and by the end of it, only 44 were left standing. PokerGuru Ambassador Arjanveer Singh ‘holdbaby’ Chadha (503,564) bagged the most massive stack with fellow stable-mate, Laksh Pal ‘boomtlt23’ Singh (457,490) and Kanav ‘sokopa’ Parwal (399,711) rounding out the top three stacks from the flight. With 1,004 total entries, the event has blown away its guarantee with a prize pool collection of ₹50.20 Lakhs in prize money. Chadha is in the overall lead among the 97 players who will be returning on Day 2 that takes place tomorrow.

Topping the other PokerBaazi flagship was the PokerBaazi Team Pro Abhishek ‘AbhishekRathod’ Rathod himself, who outran a field of 330 entries (197 entries and 133 re-entries) to take down PPL #16 BSS MegaStack ₹7 Lakhs GTD for ₹1.82 Lakhs.

Even as Grover was running hot on PokerBaazi, Bansal won his second flagship title when he topped a field of 243 runners (145 unique and 98 re-entries) in Adda52’s Millions AF ₹20 Lakhs GTD. Playing as ‘BaLuGaWh,’ he stormed into the finale against PokerGuru Ambassador Ankit ‘d00mtr00p3r’ Wadhawan. The two eventually struck a heads-up deal that saw Bansal walk away with the title and the ₹5.45 Lakhs up top, with Wadhawan finishing a close second for ₹5.10 Lakhs. The ₹11,000 buy-in tournament collected ₹24.30 Lakhs in prize money.

The biggest winner on Adda52 last night was Young Gun Ujjwal ‘fourteenk’ Narwal. The well-known reg ran past 570 hopefuls (322 unique and 248 re-entries) to champion the Mega Suits AF ₹30 Lakhs GTD for a whopping top prize of ₹7.05 Lakhs. Narwal clashed with PokerGuru Ambassador Kartik ‘Pegasus1505’ Ved in the showdown, and Ved had to concede to pocketing ₹4.11 Lakhs for finishing runner-up. Incidentally, the ₹5,500 buy-in event posted a ₹1.50 Lakhs overlay.

The PokerStars India run of Sunday events was headlined by the Sunday Special PKO ₹15 Lakhs GTD, where 305 entries (164 entries and 141 re-entries) generated a healthy ₹15.25 Lakhs prize pool. Sood who plays by the moniker ‘3betPanda’ clinched the title and ₹3.01 lakhs in prize money, following a heads-up deal with Sahil ‘inaboobham’ Mahboobani (runner-up for ₹1.62 Lakhs).

Over at 9stacks, The Joker ₹9 Lakhs GTD brought together 256 runners (233 unique and 33 rebuts). In the end, Ashish ‘AK19’ Kumar defeated ‘Bajarbattu’ heads-up to win the title and the ₹2.20 Lakhs up top. The latter took home a ₹1.48 Lakhs payday for finishing second.

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