Team PokerStars Pro Muskan Sethi Wins Her 1st Live Title at the 2018 GUKPT Boxing Day Special NLHE For £4,900 (₹4.34 Lakhs)

With the year soon closing in, the 2018 Grosvenor UK Poker Tour (GUKPT) recently hosted its Christmas-special roster of tournaments across the UK. Comprising of seven poker tournaments the GUKPT Christmas Cracker covered seven regions at all the Grosvenor Casinos from December 12-23.

The Christmas-themed tournaments are synonymous with fun and sociable way to play tournament poker, and each Christmas Cracker boasted a £20,000 Guaranteed prize pool along with a £115 buy-in. Featuring among the list of winners at the Christmas Cracker series was our very own Muskan Sethi (cover image) who won her maiden live title in the Boxing Day Special event hosted at a popular Grosvenor stop, the Victoria Casino in London. Sethi took the top honors after a four-way deal that fetched her £4,900 (~₹4,34,493) in prize money.

“It is my first live title and is very precious to me,” said Sethi, after her win. Talking about the decisions she took on the table, Sethi said, “I just made bold moves, and pulled the trigger at the correct spots.”

Sethi has had a busy year on the felts. After her fifth place finish at the 2018 Deltin Poker Tournament (DPT) (₹65K NLHE Adda52 High Roller – 5^th for ₹4.27 Lakhs) in February, she picked up scores at the 2018 PokerStars Megastack London, 2018 WSOP and the 2018 The Wynn Summer Classic. With this win, she has finally got the monkey off her back by taking down her first-ever live title.

Sethi emerged into the Indian poker scene way back in 2014 when she was shortlisted for the PokerStars Shark Cage TV show in Barcelona. The show opened the doors for Sethi to compete against some of the biggest names in poker and she has never looked back since. Right after she was conferred with the First Ladies Award by the President of India as a recognition of her skills in poker, Sethi became the second Indian, after veteran poker player Aditya Agarwal to be taken onboard by PokerStars as their Team pro. And after winning her first live title in London, which happens to be Sethi`s second home, her career has truly come full circle.

The Boxing Day Special featured a buy-in of £330 pounds that generated a prize pool of £33,900 across the entries.

Coming into the final table, Sethi trailblazed her way to the top. After a four-way deal was agreed, Sethi sailed through to the finale. At the heads-up play, she found her opponent holding jack-ten while she held and found an ace on the board to take down the title.

Prior to the Boxing Day special, Sethi entered the £115 buy-in Christmas Cracker where she came into Day 2 with a commanding chip lead. However Day 2 saw Sethi take a brutal bad beat in a three way all-in pot when her pocket aces were pitted against ace-king and ace-queen. Surprisingly, the player with ace-queen took down the pot and Sethi was eliminated in 17^th place for £590 (~₹52,316).