This Week in Poker: August 12 – 18

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

All roads led to Goa last week, where excitement ruled with the August Edition of the IPC. This time, the series outdid its own past records with huge numbers and large prize pools. A new face, Abhishek Ravi, won the 30K Main event, even as other new names and some known ones, all were champions at the different events. The two new events this IPC – the Highroller and the Greed, both received a tremendous response.

The live tournament action will now continue with the EPT Barcelona from Aug 18 – 30 and MPC 23 Red Dragon from Aug 28 – Sep 13. Team PokerStars Pro Aditya Agarwal has confirmed his attendance at the MPC 23, where he will be once again seen in action, having missed the IPC series.

The momentum was no less online and one player who made hay, while the Sun shone in Goa, was Rajat Sharma. Rajat made 7,628.92 for 1st place in the PokerStars ‘The Bigger $44, $35K GTD’, playing under the moniker ‘oshoswami‘, and is our ‘PokerGuru Star of the Week’.

In our other weekly round-up, we have reports of the Mahalakshmi Rummy case, which was recently heard in the Supreme Court.

In international news, there are stories about Amaya acquiring a Daily fantasy sports site, Vaneesa Selbst winning $1 Million, Jason Somerville launching a new poker event and news from the APT Cebu Main Event, which was won by Norway’s Henrik Tollefsen.

Online Railbird Report

Rajat ‘oshoswami’ Sharma is our ‘PokerGuru Star of the Week‘, courtesy his 1^st place in PokerStars ‘The Bigger $44, $35K GTD’ where he made $7,628.92. Rajat made the win, right from Goa, where he was attending the IPC.

Shashank ‘felter1989’ Jain was another in Goa for IPC, who bagged two great scores for a total of $4,176. Both his scores came on PokerStars, with a 5^th place for 2,524.50 in the ‘$109 NL Hold’em [Turbo], $30K GTD’ and another for $1,652.50 from a 20th place finish in the ‘$530 Sunday 500, $250K GTD’.

Other players who made money this week include:

– Sanjay Taneja collected $3,302.25 for 6th place in the PokerStars ‘The Big $162, $60K GTD – Guarantee Boost’.

– ‘Arsenicistheansr‘ made two scores, both for 4th place, in the PokerStars ‘$27 NL Hold’em [Turbo, Knockout], $15K GTD’ for $1,025.12 and in the PokerStars ‘$82 NL Hold’em [6-Max, Hyper-Turbo], $10K GTD’ for $1,100.27 respectively.

– Abhishek ‘abhi147’ Rathod made $1,943.70 for 6th place in the PokerStars ‘FR Summer Warm-Up – €50, €40 000 GTD’.

– Akash ‘buddlauv’ Sanghvi won $1,912.52 for 1st place in the PokerStars ‘$82 NL Hold’em [Turbo], $6K GTD’.

There was also news from Full Tilt, which saw user-numbers fall after it initiated changes in its ring-game offerings. The site had many changes, stating that these would add more appeal to the recreational players, but traffic dropped by 20% after the changes were implemented.

Read the complete story here.

IPC August Edition Recap

This IPC Aug edition not only brought huge numbers, but several new champions as well. The Deltin Royale poker room had almost all the notables in India, new players and several celebrities attending the event and registered record-breaking numbers on all days.

As tradition, the series kicked off with the 5K Warm Up event. A huge crowd of 284 players registered and Aditya Wadhwani won the event for ₹3.05 Lakhs.

Read the complete story here.

The 10K Weekend Kickoff event made history, when 319 players signed up, breaking the last record at the April edition, which had 308 entries. Online grinder Arsh “bigggTymeR” Grover took his first live tournament title, when he won the event for ₹6.8 Lakhs.

Read the complete story here.

The first-ever IPC 60K Highroller event saw an unbelievable 140 runners joining the fray, turning it into a 2-day affair. Mumbai-based Priyesh M came through to win the event for a whopping prize of ₹16.24 Lakhs.

Read the complete story here.

Abhishek Ravi, again a new winner overcame a field of 248 players and 21 hours of play to claim victory at the 30K Main Event. Ravi collected one of the highest top prizes in recent times i.e. ₹16.4 Lakhs for this win. The player who blazed throughout the weekend though, was Rajeev Kanjani, who once again played impressively, making his second final table in as many days. Kanjani entered the Main Event shortly after his 4^th place finish in the ₹60K Highroller. This combined with his 3^rd place finish in the Main Event, netted Kanjani a total of ₹14.67 Lakhs in prize money over the weekend.

Read the complete story here.

The second new addition at the series i.e. the 8K Greed had a highly unusual format, with the top rung of players getting to select play or deal. Anudeep Srinivas finally won the event for ₹3.85 Lakhs, after making it through a player-pool of 184 runners.

Read the complete story here.

Court Moves on Mahalakshmi Case

After several months that saw a change in the two-judge bench roster, the Supreme Court finally heard the Mahalakshmi “Rummy for Stakes” case on Aug 12. The court patiently listened to the Defense for four hours and asked several questions.

A day later, the Court refused to give a decision on the online rummy playing aspect, citing that it was not party to the appeal. The Court did however state that it would give its reply to the pending issue of live rummy within a short time.

Read the complete story here.

Amaya Acquires Daily Fantasy Sports Site, Victiv

Amaya finally fulfilled its ambition to begin offering players Daily fantasy sports offerings, by acquiring Victiv. The Texas-based site has achieved immense growth in just a year and its superior functional technology led to Amaya preferring it over other such sites.

The site is to be renamed StarsDraft and will be available across all 45 states that permit fantasy sports in the US.

Read the complete story here.

Vanessa Selbst Claims $1 Mn At Super HighRoller Celebrity Shootout

A special poker event has been on air at the Poker Central TV channel. The two-table event had celebrities at one and poker pros at another, with one winner from each facing off in a heads up duel.

Vanessa Selbst overcame the pro table to battle Kevin Pollack from the celebrity one and ultimately defeated Pollack to win the top prize of $1 Million. Selbst intends using part of the win to fund her organization Venture Justice, which provides seed capital to entrepreneurs.

Read the complete story here.

Jason Somerville Launches New ‘Run it UP Reno’ Live Poker Event

Jason Somerville is on a high, ever since his live streaming on Twitch TV saw immense popularity. The pro was snapped up by PokerStars as a brand ambassador and now has entered a two-year renewal with Twitch TV for his show “Run it UP.”

Somerville has just announced his first-ever live event titled “Run it UP Reno” to be held in Oct this year. The event will be held at the Peppermill Reno and have a host of fun activities, ending with a $500 Main Event and may also feature Somerville’s favorite “Big Brother” celebrities.

Read the complete story here.

The APT 2015 Cebu PHP 50,000 buy-in Main Event kicked off on Aug 14 and 160 runners signed up. Norweign player Henrik Tollefsen took the chip lead on Day 2 of the event and did not relinquish the lead until he had the title.

This is Henrick’s 2^nd APT title, after winning it at the APT Macau in 2013 and this year he takes home a prize purse of PHP 1,717,100. Sweden’s Roger Spets made PHP 1,173,900 for 2^nd place.

That sums up this weeks poker update. We will return next Tuesday, with the latest developments, so do log on to catch up with all that’s new in poker world.