This Week in Poker: February 17 – 23

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

It’s action time in Goa once again, with the India Poker Championship (IPC), India’s largest poker tournament series starting tomorrow. This time too, Spartan Poker are title sponsors. Already the site has garnered a large bagful of treats for its players, with 54 satellite winners bagging seats to the IPC, worth a whopping ₹23.10 Lakhs! As always, PokerGuru will be onsite bringing you all the live updates of the IPC, so stay logged on to catch all the action.

Hectic action saw several eminent poker tournaments in different places across the globe! These past seven days saw the European Poker Tour (EPT) Dublin and the UKIPT Dublin series come to a close, with notables and newcomers bagging top prizes.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Circuit Palm Beach brought glory to Mukul Pahuja, who won the Main Event. Going Far East, two more top series played out with the Asian Poker Tour (APT) Cebu and the Macau Poker Cup (MPC) 24. The latter saw Kartik Ved cashing in Event 3, besides a large Indian team headed for the series in the next few days.

Other important developments include the return of the team event at this summer’s WSOP extravaganza, after a long 33-year hiatus. Full Tilt being merged into the PokerStars platform was another big announcement relating to online action.

In domestic news, the Goa government finally moved with its draft to ban all natives and those under 21 from inhabiting casino areas.

Online the action was equally busy with numerous cashes, and this time Jay ‘jaymavs’ Mavani is our “PokerGuru Star of the Week” for making $9,929.80 at second place in ‘The Big $109, $65K GTD’ on PokerStarsearlier today.

Online Railbird Report

Jay ‘jaymavs’ Mavani makes his debut as our “PokerGuru Star of the Week” for his second place finish in the PokerStars ‘The Big $109, $65K GTD’ for $9,929.80.

Team PokerStars Pro Aditya ‘Adi Agarwal’ Agarwal continues his good form while honeymooning, and is this week’s second highest grosser making almost $9,000. He made three scores with the largest of $4,343.00 for first place in the PokerStars ‘The Hot $109 [Turbo], $15K GTD’. He also made a third place for $2,653.60 in the PokerStars ‘$82 NL Hold’em [6-Max, Hyper-Turbo], $15K GTD’ and a fourth place for $2,007 in the PokerStars ‘$109 NL Hold’em [Turbo,1R1A], $12K GTD’.

Abhishek ‘AvenueA’ Shivhare made a second place finish in ‘The Big $22, $45K GTD’ on PokerStars for $7,347.44.

‘indiandurr’ made $4,288.35 for third place in the PokerStars ‘The Hot $162 [Turbo], $25K GTD’.

Nikhil ‘si151190’ Anand won the PokerStars ‘$27 NL Hold’em [6-Max, Hyper-Turbo], $15K GTD’ for $3,362.37.

Pradeep ‘rashii10’ Singh made a first place for $2,944.47 in the PokerStars ‘The Bigger $7.50, $15K GTD’.

Rohit ‘igotu1217’ Kumar won $2,914 for second place in PokerStars ‘The Hot $109 [Turbo], $15K GTD’.

Abhishek ‘abhi47’ Rathod cashed $2,084.68 for a fifth place in the Winamax TOP 50.

‘pinkyboy12’ made first place for $1,841.48 in the PokerStars ‘$33 NL Hold’em [6-Max, Turbo], $6K GTD’.

Akash ‘proFISHnal’ Malik made $1,788.58 for 17^th place in the PokerStars ‘$215 Sunday Warm-Up, $425K GTD’.

Sharad ‘keenyle’ Rao won $1,631.96 for first place in the PokerStars ‘$27 NL Hold’em [6-Max, Progressive Super-Knockout], $12K GTD’.

Anmol ‘arsenicthecleansr’ Srivats made fifth place for $1,404.42 in the PokerStars ‘Nightly $55, $25K GTD’.

Macau Poker Cup (MPC) 24

A number of our Indian players are headed for the MPC 24. Kartik Ved, who was among the first to be there, scored HK $3,130 from his 20th place finish in Event 3. Team PokerStars Pro Aditya Agarwal will be reaching next week and will be seen in action at the Main Event. Others who are expected to be at the series include Dhaval Mudgal, Kunal Patni, Shravan Chhabria, Nikita Luther, Akash Malik, Raghav Bansal and Rajeev Raut.

The Baby Dragon event saw Kwok Chun Lai claim the first place for HK $421,398. Indian-origin player Rishav Kumar cashed at 23^rd place for HK $13,590.

In the Opening event, Jen-yen Chien was the champion collecting HK $100,150.

Event 3, HK $2,500 Bounty was won by Ion Song for HK $78,255.

Read the complete story here.

Asian Poker Tour (APT) Cebu

Alex Ward of UK won the PHP 55,000 APT Cebu Main Event for PHP 1,783,000 and the APT Championship ring. Ji Young Kim was runner up for PHP 1,044,000.

In side events, the PHP 11,000 buy-in PLO Hi event was won by Ji Jang Geun for PHP 187,400. Bing Cui was the champion of the Deep Stack event for PHP 175,900, beating 142 entries.

The MSW Deepstack Turbo title was claimed by Kenneth Clark for PHP 121,500, with Toshiyuki Onda making a runner up finish.

Read the complete story here.

WSOP Circuit Palm Beach Main Event

Mukul Pahuja was the champion of the WSOP Circuit Palm Beach Main Event, collecting his third gold ring and $193,095 for the win. The event drew 613 entries and Adam Levy made second place for $119,434.

Read the complete story here.

European Poker Tour 12 Dublin

The EPT 12 Dublin finally ended with its two highlight events witnessing thrilling finales. Polish phenom Dzmitry Urbanovich won the €5,300 Main Event for €561,900, beating Gilles Bernie in the heads up match, who made €349,800.

The €10,300 High Roller was won by Samuel Panzica for €375,770, after a deal with Akin Tuna, who made second place.

Read the complete story here.

UKIPT Dublin

Vladas Tamasauskas emerged victorious in the PokerStars Season 5 UKIPT Dublin Main Event for €176,900, beating a massive entry pool of 1,002 players.

Read the complete story here.

Team Event to Make a Comeback at the 2016 WSOP

The last team event at WSOP was in 1983 and now after 33 years, WSOP will be reviving this in its coming summer festival. The event will have a buy-in of $1,000 for each member of the team that will consist of two to four players.

Read the complete story here.

Full Tilt To Merge With PokerStars

It was announced that Full Tilt would soon be merged into the PokerStars platform to form a single liquidity pool. The two sites would however, continue to hold their separate entities and brand-specific promotions. Players would be able to continue to enjoy Full Tilt offers, but by logging in through their PokerStars user ids.

Read the complete story here.

Goa Pushes Draft To Ban Natives & Under 21 At Casinos

The BJP-run Goa government has finally progressed with its draft to ban locals and all under the age of 21 from inhabiting casinos. The state law department has made certain observations and vetted the draft, which will then be placed before the Cabinet, as a Gaming Commissioner needs to be appointed in order to implement the stipulated rules.

Read the complete story here.

That is all for this weekly report, but we will return same time next week, so keep your browsers pointed this way, to catch all the news from poker world.