This Week in Poker: June 1 – 7

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!

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The 2022 summer is proving to be one of the busiest ever for Indian poker players. While Team India has already opened its scorecard at the 53rd annual World Series of Poker (WSOP), a slew of flagship series have set the virtual felts ablaze with non-stop action. While MPL Poker’s first-ever India Poker Festival got over this week, three other headline stops – Spartan Poker’s biggest-ever IOPC June 2022, PokerBaazi’s 1100 THC, and PokerStars India’s Summer Series have kept the online action in top gear!

The first-ever IOPC Mastermind Aniket Waghmare topped the weekly charts after shipping two IOPC flagships, most prominently IOPC #28 – Blaze, for a mind-blowing ₹31.40 Lakhs. By Tuesday, Waghmare had accumulated ₹40.83 Lakhs in weekly winnings, making him an easy pick as our “PokerGuru Star of the Week!”

The IOPC #28 – Blaze runner-up, Young Gun Anuj Yadav, PokerGuru Ambassador Ashish Ahuja, Srihari Bang, Young Guns Karan Radia & Arsh Grover, and Anurag Srivastava were the other standout scorers this past week.

IndiaPlays is completing one year of operations in June, and the site has announced some enticing promotions to mark the occasion. It’s currently hosting its first-ever MTT series – the ₹10 Lakhs GTD Anniversary Special (June 9 – 14), which will be followed by the Rakeback Week (June 15 – 21), where players can claim a flat 100% Rakeback on all the cash games they play on the site. They only need to make a minimum deposit of ₹3,000 to qualify.

BLITZPOKER has also rolled out its “Jackpot June” promotion. Cash game players can choose from a range of bonus offers and claim up to ₹1 Lakh in bonuses – with the deposit criterion starting as little as ₹50!

Raising the prospects for the country’s fast-growing but unregulated online gaming market to come out of the grey zone, the Union government recently set up a seven-member inter-ministerial panel to look into the possibility of regulating the sector.

The hunt for the most prized award in poker, the WSOP gold bracelet, is well underway in Las Vegas, and the 2022 WSOP has already awarded almost a dozen bracelets.

The country`s poker pioneer Aditya Agarwal, who is making his 16<sup>th</sup> consecutive appearance at the annual series, opened Team India`s scorecard at this year’s series with a ninth-place finish in Event #3: $2,500 Freezeout NLHE for $23,634 (~₹18.36 Lakhs). Even though it’s still early in the series, Young Gun Neel Joshi, Anirudh Reddy, Abhishek Parashar, and former bracelet champion Aditya Sushant have added to the Indian scorecard.

Back in Asia, a sizable Indian contingent is in attendance at the Asian Poker Tour (APT) Vietnam Loyal Hanoi. Vaibhav Sharma and Jasven Saigal are the two Indians who made deep runs in the series-opener Mystery Bounty. The recent WPT Prime Vietnam Main Event champion Zarvan Tumboli will be another Indian to keep tabs on as he was one of the 30 survivors on Day 1A of the Main Event.

Alongside the WSOP, the fan nomination process for the prestigious Poker Hall of Fame (PHoF) was thrown open, meaning that poker fans worldwide can cast their vote on the WSOP site on who they think should be the 2022 PHoF inductee.

The World Poker Tour has teamed up with Wynn Las Vegas to launch the WPT World Championship, a live poker event that will take place in December, and is looking to set a new record by offering the largest-ever guaranteed prize pool of $15 Million at a $10,400 buy-in.

Online Railbird Report

With four flagship MTT stops running simultaneously across top sites, the week was replete with breakout winners, and several among them banked millions in prize money.

Towering over everyone else was the first-ever IOPC Mastermind, Aniket Waghmare, who took down the IOPC #28 – Blaze on Spartan Poker for a mind-blowing ₹31.40 Lakhs. Waghmare had won the IOPC #5 – Thursday Prime earlier in the week and cumulatively added ₹40.83 Lakhs throughout the week, making him our “PokerGuru Star of the Week!”

His top finishes include:

> 1st in Spartan Poker’s IOPC #28 – Blaze for ₹31.40 Lakhs

> 1st in Spartan Poker’s IOPC #5 – Thursday Prime for ₹6.55 Lakhs

> 6th in PokerBaazi’s The Endeavour for ₹53,508

The #1 ranked player of the year, Young Gun Anuj Yadav, finished one spot behind Waghmare in IOPC #28 – Blaze, but did one better in two IOPC events that helped him put up ₹30.10 Lakhs on his weekly dashboard.

His top finishes include:

> 2nd in Spartan Poker’s IOPC #28 – Blaze for ₹19.26 Lakhs

> 1st in Spartan Poker’s IOPC #29 – D’Lite for ₹4.04 Lakhs

> 1st in Spartan Poker’s IOPC #6 – Thursday Spotlight for ₹2.89 Lakhs

> 3rd in Spartan Poker’s IOPC #20 – Saturday Spotlight for ₹1.40 Lakhs

PokerGuru Ambassador Ashish Ahuja entered his name as the first-ever IPF#13 Main Event champion on Sunday as he toppled the 1,153-player field to MPL Poker to collect a whopping ₹17 Lakhs. With ₹19.63 Lakhs in total winnings throughout the week, Ahuja consolidated his position as the #3 ranked player of the year!

The former IOPC – Millionaire champion Srihari Bang was another chartbuster who took down Spartan Poker`s IOPC #26 – Sunday Prime for ₹13.36 Lakhs. He collectively added ₹14.97 Lakhs.

This week’s The Weekly HighRoller champion, Young Gun Karan Radia, padded his bankroll by almost ₹13.36 Lakhs.

His top finishes include:

> 2nd in Spartan Poker’s IOPC #26 – Sunday Prime for ₹8.41 Lakhs

> 1st in PokerBaazi’s The Weekly HighRoller for ₹4.97 Lakhs

The #2 ranked player of the year, Young Gun Arsh Grover, shipped three events this past week, working up scores worth ₹12.63 Lakhs.

His top finishes include:

> 1st in MPL Poker’s IPF#9 for ₹4.20 Lakhs

> 1st in Spartan Poker’s IOPC #36 – Monday Spotlight for ₹3.35 Lakhs

> 8th in Spartan Poker’s IOPC #13 – Friday Spotlight for ₹1.34 Lakhs

> 1st in Adda52’s Friday Bounty for ₹83,327

The former IOPC – The Millionaire champion Anurag Srivastava (Weekly Cashes – ₹12.02 Lakhs), PokerGuru Ambassador Debneil Mukherjee (Weekly Cashes – ₹12.01 Lakhs), Sreekanth Narayan (Weekly Cashes – ₹11.19 Lakhs), and Puneet Mishra (Weekly Cashes – ₹10.25 Lakhs) were the other top scorers of the week.

Notable Winners of the Week

IndiaPlays is Celebrating its First Anniversary This Month!

₹10 Lakhs GTD Anniversary Special Series (June 8 – 14)

IndiaPlays is turning one this month and celebrating the milestone; the site has announced a range of promotions. Kickstarting the party was the ₹1 Lakh GTD Anniversary Freeroll on June 3, followed by the ₹10 Lakhs GTD Anniversary Special Series, which has eight events running on the site from June 8 to 14.

The site has also announced four Value Packages, offering great value and free tickets to depositing players.

Read the complete report here

Rakeback Week Offers 100% Rakeback (June 15 – 21)

IndiaPlays has its bumper Rakeback Week coming up from June 15-2. Open to all players who made a minimum deposit of ₹3,000 using the deposit code “RB100”, the site will be handing out a flat 100% Rakeback to all players for the rake they contribute across the cash tables.

Read the complete report here

BLITZPOKER Announces Jackpot June Deposit Offer

The fast-growing online poker platform BLITZPOKER has announced “Jackpot June” for depositing cash game players, offering different bonus offers. Players stand a chance to claim up to ₹1 Lakhs in bonus money, with the deposit criterion starting as little at as ₹50.

Read the complete report here

WSOP 2022 Updates

The 53rd annual World Series of Poker (WSOP) began on May 31, and the mega-series has already awarded almost a dozen bracelets. Topping the list of the first week`s winners was Chad Eveslage, who came out on top of a 251-player field in Event #8: $25K High Roller to collect his first WSOP bracelet and a career-best $1,415,610.

Read the complete report here

Another player who pocketed a million-plus payday was David Peters. The high roller specialist captured his fourth career bracelet in Event #2: $100K High Roller Bounty, pocketing a hefty $1,166,810.

Read the complete report here

Henry Acain came out on top of a record-shattering 20,080-entry field in Event #5: $500 The Housewarming NLHE to win his career-first bracelet and $701,215. The $5 Million guarantee got crushed on the third starting flight itself, and the final prize pool reached a massive $8,435,280!

Read the complete report here

Scott Seiver claimed his career-fourth bracelet in Event #3: $2,500 Freezeout NLHE for $320,059.

Henry Acain, Indian-origin player Raj Vohra, Dan Smith, Norbert “Balkan500” Szecsi, Amnon Filippi, Manig “Ohio77” Loeser, Brad Ruben, Alex Livingston, and Katie Kopp won the other bracelets.

WSOP 2022 Winners of the Week

Team India opened its scorecard at the series in Event #3, with India’s poker veteran Aditya Agarwal finishing ninth for $23,634 (~₹18.36 Lakhs) – this third-time FT-ing a bracelet event.

Read the complete report here

Anirudh Reddy, Abhishek Parashar, Young Gun Neel Joshi, and bracelet winner Aditya Sushant picked up early cashes at the series.

Team India Cashes at the 2022 WSOP

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