This Week in Poker: December 2 – 8

In the PokerGuru feature ‘This Week in Poker,’ we bring you the weekly roundup of the most significant online scores by Indian MTT players and the top stories from both the live and online poker circuit.

Here are this week’s top stories!

The first week of December is now in the books, and as we approach the end of 2020, the online action has once again picked up speed, with Spartan Poker’s brand-new The Millionaire Series getting underway on December 7.

The trailblazer this past week was none other than Siliguri-based Manish Lakhotia. The Chemical engineer turned poker pro has been in spectacular form these last few weeks posting several deep runs; the 34-year-old seemed to be on the precipice of a big score. He finally hit the jackpot on Sunday as he took down The Millionaire Warm-Up for a personal-best ₹17.03 Lakhs! The former IOPC Millionaire United champion also final tabled Adda52’s The Ballers for ₹2.47 Lakhs, raking in a cumulative ₹19.62 Lakhs through the week. No points for guessing then that Lakhotia is the “PokerGuru Star of the Week!”

Young Gun Gaurav Sood, Ashraf Ali, Rubin Labroo, Arjun Pasricha, Young Gun Anmol Mehta, Sandeep Singh, Sanket Arora, and PokerGuru Ambassador Arjanveer ‘arjan30’ Singh Chadha were others who featured among the other top scorers of the week.

The end of the month meant that PokerStars India’s “Star of the Month” – November leaderboard race also came to a close. PokerGuru Ambassador Ashish Munot championed the 100-player Finale on December 2 to win ₹1.15 Lakhs worth of MTT tickets and a PokerStars India goodie bag. Simultaneously, the December race also closed out its first week on Sunday with PokerGuru Ambassador Ashish Ahuja headlining the first lot of 25 qualifiers.

With the holiday season fast approaching, online poker sites have gone on hyperdrive, doling out attractive tournaments and promotions for their user bases. First up, we have the fast-growing online poker site, Pocket52, that will be celebrating its second birthday this month with a grand ₹5 Lakhs GTD Birthday Bash Freeroll on December 13.

Joining in the winter celebrations, PokerDangal announced three lucrative promotions. The ‘Hit the Mark’ promotion is aimed at the cash game players, while the Christmas freerolls worth ₹50,000 and other special deposit offers are sure to add cheer to every poker player`s Christmas celebrations.

Another significant announcement came from the Asian Poker Tour (APT) that has launched APT India Online Series in association with PokerBaazi. The series will run from January 15 to 26, 2021, and promises ₹8 Crores in guaranteed prizes across 48 tournaments.

Moving to the international sphere, the race to crown the 2020 World Champion of Poker has started. The World Series of Poker (WSOP) $10K NLHE World Championship, better known as the WSOP Main Event, commenced its run at GGPoker/Natural8 on November 29 and logged in 674 entries across three starting flights. A total of 179 runners made it through to Day 2 that played out on December 7. The field eventually dwindled down to the nine-handed final table, with Brazil’s Brunno Botteon bagging the end of the day chip lead. The FT will be played live at the King’s Casino in Rozvadov on December 15. The WSOP.com leg of the Main Event starts in a few days.

The other top story featured controversy’s favorite child and the self-proclaimed King of Instagram,’ Dan Bilzerian, who has become the latest poker personality to join Team GGPoker as its brand ambassador. He will be representing the company in both live and online ventures.

In other news, Andhra Pradesh recently passed the AP Gaming (Amendment) Bill 2020 in the state legislative assembly by voice note banning all real-money online gaming.

The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has introduced new guidelines on real-money gaming (RMG) advertisements starting December 15. The new guidelines will be applicable for ads of all real-money gaming platforms on mediums like print, television, and digital.

On December 3, a three-member bench of the Supreme Court led by Justice Ashok Bhushan alongside Justices R. Subhash Reddy and MR Shah upheld the notification issued under the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, that brought lottery and other real-money games under the ambit of GST, settling the long, contentious issue once and for all.

The current political and legal developments in Karnataka do not look very favorable for the real-money gaming industry. The High Court of Karnataka last week asked the state government to respond to a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking a ban on all forms of online gambling and betting until appropriate regulations are framed.

Landing yet another damaging blow to the real-money gaming industry, the Madras High Court on December 7 refused to grant an interim stay on the ordinance promulgated by the Tamil Nadu government banning all forms of real-money games. The writ petition seeking the stay was filed by online rummy platform Junglee Games.

Online Railbird Report

Spartan Poker has sure laid out the red carpet with an exclusive The Millionaire Series. As a prelude to the upcoming extravaganza, the site ran a special ₹1 Crore GTD The Millionaire Warm-up tourney last weekend. The former IOPC Millionaire United champion Manish Lakhotia topped the 1,975-strong player field in the tourney to secure a career-best ₹17.03 Lakhs. Additionally, Lakhotia also placed third in Adda52’s The Ballers for ₹2.47 Lakhs to collect more than ₹19.62 Lakhs this week – making him the week’s biggest scorer and also our “PokerGuru Star of the Week!”

Running hot on Lakhotia’s heel is our Young Gun Gaurav Sood, who made most of his deep runs in the big-ticket tourneys count. He FT-ed an impressive five flagship tourneys, collecting over ₹17 Lakhs in prize money. Sood caught his biggest score in the Adda52 Millions on Sunday, which he won for ₹6.50 Lakhs. But he also captured PokerBaazi’s BSS Superstack for ₹5.02 Lakhs and finished runner-up in The Elite for ₹4.48 Lakhs.

The Millionaire runner up Ashraf Ali also makes the top winners list with ₹9.46 Lakhs in earnings.

The Millionaire Warm-Up third-place finisher Rubin Labroo pocketed ₹6.59 Lakhs, while also coming in third in Tuesday’s The Mint for ₹2.41 Lakhs, collecting over ₹9.10 Lakhs this week.

Another standout scorer was the former Millionaire United champion and first-ever FTS Main Event winner, Arjun Pasricha. In addition to placing fourth in The Millionaire Warmup for ₹4.77 Lakhs, Pasricha went on to champion the ₹35 Lakhs GTD Sunday SuperStack for ₹6.77 Lakhs, earning ₹11.54 Lakhs from these two scores alone. His blazing run this past week has catapulted him to #3 on this year`s profit leaderboard.

Young Gun Anmol Mehta makes the featured winner’s lineup for taking down the ₹30 Lakhs GTD Mega Suits for ₹7.29 Lakhs, while also posting three more FT finishes, including a fourth-place score worth ₹1.33 Lakhs in PokerStars India’s ₹15 Lakhs GTD Sunday Highroller. In all, Mehta added almost ₹10 Lakhs to his bankroll this past week.

Sandeep Singh (Destiny for ₹7.02 Lakhs), Sanket Arora (Godfather for ₹6.53 Lakhs and Iron Man for ₹1.62 Lakhs) and PokerGuru Ambassador Arjanveer ‘arjan30’ Singh Chadha (The Ballers for ₹5.62 Lakhs) was the week’s other big winner.

The notable winners of the week include –

PokerGuru Ambassador Ashish Ahuja Tops the December Week #1 Standings

The PokerStars India “Star of the Month” – December leaderboard race is already on its second week. PokerGuru Ambassador Ashish Ahuja accumulated 666 TLB points in the opening week of December to top the list of 25 qualifiers moving to the month-ending Finale.

Read the complete report here

PokerBaazi to Host 1st-ever Asian Poker Tour (APT) India Online Series

Prominent Asian poker live tournament brand, Asian Poker Tour (APT), will be making its online debut in India next month with the APT India Online Series in partnership with PokerBaazi. The series will run from January 15-26 and give away more than ₹8 Crores across 48 events.

Read the complete report here

Pocket52’s December Promotions

Celebrates 2^nd Birthday With ₹5 Lakhs GTD Birthday Bash Freeroll

Pocket52 has announced a ₹5 Lakhs GTD Birthday Bash Freeroll on December 13 to mark the completion of its two years of operations.

Read the complete report here

Launches ‘The Reborn Series’

Pocket52 has launched a brand-new ‘The Reborn Series’ in December, offering ₹1.3 Crores in MTT guarantees spread through the month.

Read the complete report here

PokerDangal is Offering ‘Hit the Mark,’ ‘Christmas Special Deposit Offers’ & ‘Freerolls’ in December

PokerDangal has launched three new promotions for December. For cash game players, there is the ‘Hit the Mark’ promotion. It has also launched special deposit offers and weekly Christmas Freerolls promising ₹50,000 in total giveaways.

Read the complete report here

Dan Bilzerian Joins GGPoker as Brand Ambassador

Self-proclaimed “King of Instagram” and poker player Dan Bilzerian has joined the GGPoker as the poker network`s latest brand ambassador and will be representing the brand both live and online.

Read the complete report here

WSOP Main Event Updates

The GGPoker leg of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) $10K NLHE World Championship, aka the WSOP Main Event, has played down to the final table, and leading the final nine is Brazil’s Brunno Botteon, who carries a monstrous stack of 10,317,743.

The event registered 674 entries across three starting flights generating a prize pool of $6,470,400. A total of 179 qualifiers converged to play Day 2 earlier this week, and while 80 spots were assured payouts, all the nine finalists have already secured $75,360.

The final table will be played live at Kings Casino in Rozvadov on December 15. The eventual champion will pocket a paycheque of $1,500,969, along with qualifying for the heads-up finale with the WSOP.com Main Event champion on December 30 in Las Vegas.

Read the complete report here

With this, we conclude this week’s roundup of the latest news updates and developments from the world of poker. We will return again next week with our weekly report. Stay tuned.