The India Poker Championship December Edition Gets A Fantasy League Contest – India Poker Fantasy League (IPFL)

Fantasy Leagues have already caught on in a big way in India, with numerous sites dedicated to team sports, mostly cricket. Now this action is set to enter the Indian poker scene with the India Poker Fantasy League (IPFL), an initiative by some members of the Indian poker community – Sumit Sapra, Anup Palod, Deepak Raina and Dhaval Mudgal.

This unique contest was announced on Facebook and soon caught on the attention of the entire poker community, and it centers round the upcoming IPC Dec series. These include all featured events from Nov 30 to Dec 6. As the name suggests, participants will choose a dream-team from a list of 48 players, consisting of top pros and tournament regulars. These players will come with price tags, as per their ratings, with Aditya ‘Intervention’ Agarwal having the highest purchase price of 10.6 (IPFL Play money). Participants will win based on the performance of their Teams.

PokerGuru spoke to Sumit Sapra, one of those behind the initiative and here is what he had to say about this new initiative,

How did the idea come up for this Fantasy League?

The idea came up as a friendly chat between a few of us. Dhaval wanted to do something like this and Deepak, Anup and me got together with him to conceptualize it into something doable, for the upcoming IPC event.

Who all are behind the concept?

As mentioned above its Anup Palod, Deepak Raina, Dhaval Mudgal and myself.

Will this be a one-off event or can we expect more to follow?

We plan to do more events in the future and obviously we will continue tweaking the structure and the rules of the game based on player feedback and response. We want everyone to have fun participating in this event!

On what basis were the players chosen? Will more players be added later?

The current set of players have been chosen primarily keeping in mind their participation in the upcoming IPC and events in the recent past. The Indian poker community is small, but growing rapidly and we are looking to add many more players regularly to this pool. Also we arrived at the player purchase prices, by asking all players to rate their fellow players, so that we can have a benchmark to start off. Obviously these prices will change based on the performances in every event.

Is the contest already closed?

No, in fact we only opened the contest this Sunday and participants have time up to 11 pm on 29th November to submit their entries. We have already received several entries in the last few days.

Any other specific thing to inform readers?

There are a lot of comments and feedback we have received around various aspects like self-inclusion, PS transfers as payment, number of players, substitutions, etc. While in this particular edition it is difficult for us to incorporate any of these suggestions in the present format, I would like to assure everyone that we will look into all of these aspects for our next event and be rest assured that we’ll make it bigger and better. The idea is to have fun both on and off the tables!

Indian Poker Fantasy League – I

Here are a few guidelines about the event, the rules, how to participate, the scoring formula, etc as mentioned on the contest Facebook group!

How it Works

Entry Fee: There will be a buy-in of $100 per participant, which has to be paid before the cutoff time. All payments should be sent by PokerStars transfer to PS ID: ‘boronyx’ before 11 am, Nov 29, 2015. Any payment received after the cutoff time will be illegible for participation and those funds will be returned.

A deduction of 10% per entry will be made towards operational costs.

Team Draft: Each participant has to choose six players to form their dream team. A list of 48 players, with their IPFL badge number and their purchase price in IPFL play money, plus their schedule for the IPC Dec has been published. Only 1 entry will be allowed per person and you cannot select yourself for your Team Draft.

Team Name: Participants can choose a name of their own choice for their Teams. The name has to be of two words. The first word has to be your (participant’s name) and the 2^nd word can be any word of your choice.

E.G. Participant’s Name – Raj Kumar

Chosen 2^nd Name – Devils

Team name – Raj’s Devils

Rules & Regulations

Following are the Rules and regulations (as mentioned on the contest’ Facebook page):

1. Every participant will have a total budget of $40 Million (IPFL play money) to put together a squad of 6 players from the list provided. It is your responsibility to make sure your squad is within the budget, if you submit a squad which exceeds the budget your entry will be disqualified.

2. Participants cannot select themselves in the squad, it has to be 6 OTHER players.

3. Complete the submission forms with all details and please send the USD 100 fee via PS transfer to PS id ‘boronyx’.

As mentioned earlier if funds are not received by the cutoff time – 11 pm IST on November 29, 2015, your entry will not be considered.

4. Scoring for all players on the published list will be based on a Standard Points formula for MTTs, which will be publicly available on the IPFL Facebook page.

Only the top 10% finishers in a particular event will receive points, all other players will receive no points for that event.

5. For every event only the top 5 performers from each squad will count towards the scores for your team, So hypothetically if all 6 players from your team finish in the top 10%, only the top 5 finishers will be counted during calculations towards the overall score of a squad.

6. Once team submissions are made, no changes are permitted at any time whatsoever.

7. We will be paying out top 10% finishers in our competition, so if there are 30 entries, top 3 get paid.

Prizes will be announced once entries close. There may be additional prizes for the top 3 teams, as well as top 3 performers, from the player list. These details will be disclosed later.

8. The scores for all the players in the list and all the competing teams will be updated at the end of every event and published on the IPFL Facebook page.

Scoring Formula

The IPFL will use the following formula to score the top 10% finishers in every event –

Points scored = 10 * [sqrt(n)/sqrt(k)] * [1+log (b/100)]

Where: n is the number of entrants k is the place of finish (k=1 for the first-place finisher, and so on) b is the buy-in amount in INR

Entry Form: http://goo.gl/forms/Ljq5HXmnGS

Dream Team List: https://docs.google.com/…/1q46N9ZILBE2dPxHbsnY3oFjfLL…/edit…

List includes player name, purchase price in IPFL play money and IPFL badge number.

So, if you are a poker aficionado or just love the thought of a fantasy league, pick your six member team and get going now!