This Week in Poker: April 18 – 24

This Week in Poker: April 18th – April 24th
  • Profile picture
  • PG News April 26, 2018
  • 8 mins Read

In the PokerGuru feature ‘This Week in Poker’ we bring to you the weekly round up of the biggest online scores by Indian MTT players along with the top stories from both the live and online poker circuit.

Here are this week`s top stories

After a hectic adrenaline-gushing week of action, we are back with our weekly recap. For those who may have missed all the happenings, Team India completed a super successful outing at the 2018 Macau Millions but wait – action is set to further escalate this week! The series was the center of attraction for Indian railbirds with the big sweat coming in from our very own WSOP bracelet winner Aditya Sushant, who final tabled the Main Event. Sushant was looking to add another record to his name by becoming the first Indian to win a Main Event in Macau but he narrowly missed the title, finishing fifth for HK$276,000 (₹23.34 Lakhs).

Besides regulars, more and more new players are emerging to participate and score at both, live and online tournaments that is borne out by the numerous new names that headline our weekly Online Railbird Report, as well as our roundups from international stops.

After the international frenzy, Goa will be benefitting from all the poker action with the country’s most expensive live series till date i.e. DPT Colossus April 2018 (April 26 -29) rolling out the red carpet for poker players at Deltin Royale. A major attraction at the series will be the presence of smashing cricketer and poker lover Chris Gayle along with 888poker ambassador Sofia Lovgren.

In other major headlines – Global Player League (GPL) India announced its partnership with PokerStars India as its exclusive skill game partner with online qualifiers starting as soon as May 2018.

Besides the above, we also bring you news from IFMP’s Asian Pairs Challenge in Bangkok where Team India was represented by Jagdeep Singh and Pratibha Arya, who finished sixth among ten teams.

There was news frenzy these past couple of days with both positive and negative developments grabbing our attention. Internet giant Tencent Holdings is reportedly in advanced stages of negotiations to invest an estimated $100 million (~₹656.63 Crore) in India`s leading DFS platform – Dream11.

All wasn’t positive though as in a ‘Black Friday’ of sorts, the Chinese government announced a complete ban on online poker games in the country – including social games and social media promotions with effective from June 1.

In other international events, two major tours – European Poker Tour (EPT) Monte Carlo (April 24 – May 4), and partypoker Grand Prix Rozvadov (April 26 – April 30) got underway.

In our tournament round-up, we have reports from 2018 Macau Millions, partypoker Millions North America, WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown, WPT Amsterdam and WSOP Circuit Harrah’s Cherokee.

Online Railbird Report

Our big boys went all out on Sunday in pursuit of a big score with several majors happening on PokerStars India and other domestic sites. One name that stood out was Vishal ‘spartacus’ Tulsyan, who achieved the rare feat of shipping four events in one day! We did some research and it looks like there is one other Indian – Randeep Lather who had also won four events in one day – February 8 this year to be precise. Lather shipped the Hurricane, Tornado, Crazy 4 and a PSL Online Qualifier on Adda52.

Coming back to Tulsyan, who first won ₹1.06 Lakhs for 1st place in the MadOverPoker ‘Hysteria’ and then went on to ship the Dynamite for ₹33,446, Sunday Crawler for ₹24,295 and Bounty Mafia for ₹18,105! It`s no surprise that Tulsyan is our pick for this weeks` ‘PokerGuru Star of the Week’ title for his sheer consistency.

Vishal Tulsyan
Vishal Tulsyan

Other notable scores include –

Abhishek ‘Abhishek081190’ Jaiswal won ₹3.03 Lakhs for 1st place in the PokerBaazi ‘Baazi Super Sunday (₹15 Lakhs GTD)’

Aditya ‘Aditya Agarwal’ Agarwal won ₹1.71 Lakhs for 2nd place in the PokerStars India ‘Sunday Special – ₹5,000 NLHE, ₹12 Lakhs GTD’

‘slowroll_baller’ won ₹1.29 Lakhs for 1st place in the PokerStars India ‘Welcome Freeroll, ₹10 Lakhs Added!’

Sajjan ‘sajjan0007’ Barnwal won ₹1.10 Lakhs for 1st place in the PokerBaazi ‘Baazi Super Sunday (5 Lakhs GTD) (MonsterStack Hyper Turbo)’

Anmol ‘anmols’ A Srivats won $1,269.15 for 2nd place in the PokerStars Big $82, $6K GTD’

‘Indiapro’ won ₹38,000 for 1st place in the 9stacks ‘Sunday Stacks’

‘YouAgain’ won ₹31,000 for 1st place in the PokerBaazi ‘Baazi Super Sunday (₹1 Lakhs GTD) (Turbo Freezout)’

‘NNomadas’ won ₹24,464 for 1st place in the PokerStars India ‘Sunday Warm-Up – ₹800 NLHE, ₹1.2 Lakhs GTD’

GPL India Joins Hands With PokerStars India For Season 1

Mediarex Group`s Global Player League (GPL) India announced it`s partnership with PokerStars India for Season 1 of the league along with a tentative schedule for the same. The press release revealed that the inaugural Season would be held over a two-month period with the finals in November this year. The online qualifiers will start in May.

GPL India Joins Hands With PokerStars India For Season 1
GPL India Joins Hands With PokerStars India For Season 1

Read the complete story here.

PokerBaazi’s New ‘Time Bomb’ Tournaments

India`s most trusted online poker site – PokerBaazi recently launched “Time Bomb” tournaments – for those looking for a poker fix but have time constraints. Time Bomb tournaments run for a predetermined time, and once the time expires, the game is paused and all remaining players get a share of the prize money in proportion to their chip stacks. Events run with a timeout of 15 mins with buy-ins start from ₹100+10 going up all the way to ₹1,000+100.

Read the complete story here.

Team Singapore Wins IFMP Asian Pairs Challenge, Team India Finishes 6th

Team Singapore represented by Lau Heng Seng and Daniel Chau won the International Federation of Match Poker`s (IFMP) Asian Pairs Challenge in Bangkok where players competed in a strict rotation of individual heads-up freezeout tournaments against AI DeepStack. Team India was represented by the dynamic duo Jagdeep Singh and Pratibha Arya, who finished sixth among the ten participating teams.

Jagdeep Singh and Pratibha Arya
Jagdeep Singh and Pratibha Arya

Read the complete story here.

Tencent Holdings Looking to Invest $100 Million in DFS Site Dream11

The world’s fifth-largest Internet company Tencent Holdings created quite a buzz this week after reports came in indicating that the company is in advanced stages of negotiations to invest in India’s biggest daily fantasy sports (DFS) platform Dream11. The deal is said to be worth an estimated $100 million (~₹656.63 Crore) and could potentially value the six-year-old company at a pre-money valuation of $400-$450 million (~₹2,600 Crore to ₹2,970 Crores).

Tencent Holdings
Tencent Holdings

Read the complete story here.

Chinese Government Bans All Poker Apps From June 1

In what is being deemed as one of the biggest blows for poker in China and a ‘Black Friday’ of sorts for poker players in the country, the government has announced a complete ban on the use of online poker games – including social games with effective from June 1. All major play stores in the country have been asked to remove all poker related apps from their marketplace.

Read the complete story here.

2018 Macau Millions

The Macau Millions returned after one-year hiatus and the series was announced during the 2018 APPT Macau last month. The 7-day extravaganza at the PokerStars Live Macau featured 15 official Asia Player of the Year (APOY) events headlined by the $3 Million guaranteed Main Event.

The series was once again a historic one, with the Main Event breaking its own record (2,343 entrants in 2016) for the largest-ever tournament field in Macau, where a massive 2,499 entries joined the mega event across the three starting flights.

An interesting talking point was the format of the Main Event where each Day 1 was divided into two versions — standard and turbo.

The event was eventually taken down by 33-year-old Taiwanese pro Chen Al Lin who picked up his first Main Event title, the HK$1,159,000 (~₹98.04 Lakhs) top prize and the PSPC Platinum Pass worth $30,000.

India`s first WSOP bracelet winner Aditya Sushant, was looking to add another record to his name by becoming the first Indian to win a Main Event title in Macau, but his deep run ended in fifth place for HK$276,000 (₹23.34 Lakhs).

Aditya Sushant
Aditya Sushant

Apart from Sushant, the series saw a huge Indian contingent in participation with the likes of PSPC Platinum Pass winner Sumit Sapra, Young Guns Sahil Chutani and Abhinav Iyer, Saravanan S, Gokul Krishna, MadOverPoker pro Zarvan Tumboli, Deepak Raina, Arjjun Singh, Meherzad Munsaf, Ankit Wadhawan, Imran Mohd, Randeep Lather, Saurabh Arora, and Jason Robert Pereira, all in attendance.

ITM Finishes by Indian Players in the Main Event

ITM Finishes by Indian Players in the Main Event

ITM Finishes by Indian Players in Side Events

ITM Finishes by Indian Players in Side Events

Read the complete story here.

partypoker Millions North America

After a successful stop in Barcelona, partypoker Millions reached North America at the Playground Poker Club, Montreal, Canada with the series scheduled to run from April 21 – May 2. The tournament boasts a huge C$15 Million guaranteed prize pool across the series – headlined by the C$10 Million guaranteed Main Event.

The C$25,500 Super High Roller was shipped by Canada’s Christopher Kruk who defeated three-time WPT champion Anthony Zinno heads-up and collected a C$375,000 payday.

Christopher Kruk
Christopher Kruk

Read the complete story here.

Meanwhile, the C$10,300 buy-in Millions High Roller crowned its champion in David Eldridge who collected C$235,197 for his efforts.

David Eldridge
David Eldridge

Read the complete story here.

Scott Margereson Wins WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown

Another major stop last week was the 2018 Seminole Hard Rock Poker (SHRP) Showdown $3,500 Main Event and the top honors went to UK’s Scott Margereson, who bested a massive 1,309-player field. Margereson won the title, $696,740 (including a $15,000 entry into WPT Tournament of Champions), the WPT Champions Trophy, SHRP Showdown trophy, a Hublot Big Bang Steel watch and his name will now be inscribed on the elite WPT Champions Cup.

Scott Margereson
Scott Margereson

Read the complete story here.

WPT Amsterdam

The World Poker Tour returned for its second stop at Amsterdam this season in partnership with WPTDeepStacks and the series ran through April 13 – 20. The €3,300 Main Event attracted a total 207 players and it was Rens Feenstra who denied Ema Zajmovic the title and walked away with a handsome €156,370 ($192,335) including a $15,000 ticket to the Tournament of Champions.

Rens Feenstra
Rens Feenstra

Read the complete story here.

The most expensive event of the series, the €10,300 High Roller was taken down by Canadian pro Sam Greenwood who pocketed the €125,000 prize money after defeating Clyde Tjauw Foe in heads up play.

Sam Greenwood
Sam Greenwood

Read the complete story here.

Dylan Wilkerson Wins WSOP Circuit Harrah’s Cherokee Main Event

The WSOP Circuit Cherokee $1,675 Main Event attracted a massive field of 1,060 entrants that made for a generous $1,590,000 kitty. Topping them all was Dylan Wilkerson who clinched his second WSOP Circuit ring and collected $216,790 after defeating two-time WSOP gold bracelet winner Erick Lindgren in heads-up play.

Dylan Wilkerson
Dylan Wilkerson

Read the complete story here.

And that is all for this edition of our weekly report. We will be here again next week, same time, so stay logged on to catch all the latest news from the world of poker.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Top Online Poker Rooms

Top
PokerGuru