This Week in Poker: July 8 – 14

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!

As we hit the mid-way mark for July, online poker is clearly at an all-time high in the country. The week`s biggest draw was the Adda52 Online Poker Series (AOPS) that finally concluded on July 12 after being plagued with technical issues. The ₹3 Crores GTD AOPS Main Event was the star attraction of the series. Like its predecessors, the third edition of this big-ticket event failed to reach anywhere near its advertised guarantee. After logging in a 2,673-entry field, the event posted a landslide ₹32.7 Lakhs overlay. Our very first Young Gun and a former Moneymaker/Millionaire champion, Nitish ‘inveigle’ Gupta trounced the field to emerge as the champion. Gupta’s winnings of ₹50 Lakhs in the AOPS Main Event make him the week’s top performer and our “PokerGuru Star of the Week!”

Runner-up Ashish ‘goodpoker68’ Garg padded his wallet with ₹32 Lakhs, while Adda52 Team Pro Tarun ‘aggtarun’ Goyal, and Srihari ‘zombieballs’ Bang also earned fat paycheques.

With Adda52’s AOPS reaching the finish line, all the MTT action quickly shifted to Spartan Poker’s India Online Poker Championship (IOPC) July edition on July 9. The first of the series’ three Millionaire editions, the ₹1.5 Crores GTD IOPC #25 The Millionaire United crowned a champion in Manish ‘thekid’ Lakhotia, who won a personal-best ₹15.75 Lakhs after a four-way deal. Add to that his score from the AOPS Brunch title victory, Lakhotia raked in over ₹17 Lakhs this week.

The other Millionaire finalists, Ramji ‘bluffpolice123’ Kishore G (runner-up for ₹15.54 Lakhs), ‘Rajnicant’ and Nishant ‘FunkyouFTW1’ Sharma, also banked seven-figure scores.

There’s more coming at the IOPC with the ₹1.5 Crores GTD Millionaire Legends commencing on July 18. This will be followed by the pièce de résistance of the series, the ₹3 Crores GTD IOPC Main Event Millionaire – The Crown that starting next Monday will run eight starting flights before Day 2 begins on July 26.

Running alongside the IOPC is PokerBaazi’s all-new Indian Micro Poker Series (IMPS). Catering primarily to the low to mid-stakes players, the ₹1.5 Crores GTD series commenced on July 13 and will continue until July 26.

In gaming updates, the fantasy sports behemoth Dream11 seems to have landed itself in a bit of controversy. The BCCI’s Anti-Corruption Unit has asked Mohali police to investigate both Dream11 and its subsidiary FanCode’s association with a fake UVA T20 League.

The biggest story from the international turf is the ongoing 2020 WSOP Online series on WSOP.com. Open only to Nevada and New Jersey players, the series has handed out a dozen gold bracelets already. While there were many first-time bracelet champions this week, the most inspiring story of them all was that of 70-year-old Ron ‘MacDaddy15’ McMillen. Playing online for the first time, the septuagenarian made an online debut unlike any other by winning his career-first bracelet in Event #9: $1,000 NLH 6-Max for $188,214.

In other news, Choker brand ambassador, GM Hikaru Nakamura, defeated Eric Rosen to win the Challengers Choker Cup finals, retaining his Choker end-boss status.

Online Railbird Report

It was without an iota of doubt a blockbuster week for online poker. One that saw our first-ever Young Gun Nitish ‘inveigle’ Gupta emerge as the week`s top scorer. He traversed the 2,673-entry field in the ₹3 Crores GTD AOPS Main Event to win ₹50 Lakhs, making him our “PokerGuru Star of the Week!”

Runner-up Ashish ‘goodpoker68’ Garg pocketed an impressive ₹32 Lakhs himself. In comparison, Adda52 Team Pro Tarun ‘aggtarun’ Goyal (4th for ₹16 Lakhs), and former Millionaire champion Srihari ‘zombieballs’ Bang (6th for ₹9 Lakhs) added hefty sums to their bankroll.

Bang, who was #3 on the yearly leaderboard in our last Online Ranking update, went on a rampage this week. He FT-ed four other events across, collecting cumulatively ₹11.49 Lakhs in winnings.

There was no dearth of flagship tourneys this week, and the list of big winners is a rather long one this week. Next on the list is Manish ‘thekid’ Lakhotia, who captured Spartan Poker’s IOPC#25 The Millionaire United for a personal-best score of ₹15.75 Lakhs. If that was not enough, he also took down the ₹5 Lakhs GTD AOPS Brunch for ₹1.25 Lakhs, taking his week`s tally to ₹17 Lakhs.

The other top scorers in The Millionaire, Ramji ‘bluffpolice123’ Kishore G (runner-up for ₹15.54 Lakhs), ‘Rajnicant’ (3rd for ₹13.44 Lakhs), and Nishant ‘FunkyouFTW1’ Sharma (4th for ₹13.19 Lakhs), all made seven-figures this week.

But that’s not all! ‘yud1006’ (AOPS Holdem Highroller ₹50 Lakhs GTD for ₹12.11 Lakhs) ‘singlea,’ (2nd for ₹12 Lakhs) and ‘louis02’ (IOPC #24 Sunday Superstack ₹50 Lakhs GTD for ₹10.63 Lakhs) were some mystery players who added seven-figure scores as well.

The circuit regular Guneet ‘guntz’ Kwatra earned ₹10.48 Lakhs through the week. He finished runner-up in the IOPC #12 The Elite for ₹9.50 Lakhs and took down the Friday Euphoria on PokerStars India for ₹98,956.

The IOPC #12 Elite champion ‘RegularPlaya’ pocketed ₹9.82 Lakhs, just missing the Million-mark.

The notable scores of the week include –

Spartan Poker’s Biggest-Ever Online Tournament Series, ₹25 Crores GTD IOPC Underway

It`s fireworks at Spartan Poker that’s presently hosting its flagship India Online Poker Championship (IOPC) series. With a staggering ₹25 Crores in prize pool guarantees, the ongoing series happens to the country’s biggest online tournament series to date! Coming up this weekend is the ₹1.5 Crores GTD The Millionaire Legends that will run three starting flights starting July 18.

Read the complete report here

WSOP Online Series

No matter the COVID-19 pandemic, World Series of Poker (WSOP) has come out with a full-blown schedule of online bracelet events to be run on WSOP.com and GGPoker Network. The ongoing WSOP Online Series has handed out over a dozen bracelets to players in Nevada and New Jersey, and there is a lot more action yet to unfold.

There have been many bracelet sweats already, and some very inspiring stories have come to the fore as well. Perhaps the most prominent of them all was that of Iowa-based 70-year old Ron ‘MacDaddy15’ McMillen. Playing poker online for the very first time in his life, McMillen succeeded in winning his first-ever WSOP bracelet in Event #9: $1,000 NLH 6-Max for a $188,214 paycheque.

Read the complete report here

Eight-time WSOP Circuit ring winner Michael ‘miguelfiesta’ Lech, Ryan ‘Im.Sorry’ Torgerson, Belarus’ Raman ‘Acrogum’ Afanasenka and former junk bond analyst Alan ‘GladiusIII’ Goehring, all fulfilled their long-cherished ambition of winning a WSOP bracelet this week.

Poker vlogger and Event #12: $500 The BIG 500 NLH champion Ryan ‘joeyisamush’ Depaulo also debuted on the bracelet winners’ club. Depaulo was, in fact, playing the FT from inside his car that was parked outside a convenience store in New Jersey!

Read the complete report here

WSOP Online Series Bracelet Winners (This Week)

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.