This Week in Poker: November 11 – 17

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 midway mark for November, the online felts are sizzling up with electrifying action!

Adda52’s WPT Online India series that went underway on November 5, is now nearing its home stretch. The magnum opus of the series, the ₹2.5 Crores WPT India Main Event kicked off on November 16 and has already played out two starting flights.

While there is still some time before the first-ever WPT Online India Main Event champion is announced, the biggest winner this past week was the ₹65 Lakhs GTD WPT India Super High Roller champion, Siddhanth Kripalani. The Game Changer 3.0 winner, Kripalani, also holds the distinction of being the only one so far to have won back-to-back Destiny titles. And now he added a WPT trophy to his list of achievements on Friday night along with a hefty ₹19.38 Lakhs paycheque. So, it should come as no surprise that Kripalani is our “PokerGuru Star of the Week!”

Tarun Goyal, Jasven Saigal, PokerGuru Ambassador Ashish Munot, and Pratibha Arya were next in the line of top scorers.

PokerStars India’s “Star of the Month” – November leaderboard race completed its second week on Sunday. Akash Sharma (744 points) headlined the 25 qualifiers who made it through to the Finale, with Amar B Iyer (580 points) and Mahesh Shyamsundar (487 points) taking up the second and third spots in standings, respectively.

Though the WPT Online India is about a week away from ending, with India Poker Championship’s brand-new Final Table Series (FTS) kicking off on Spartan Poker this week, the virtual action is not going to slow down. The series began on November 16, with the first three tournaments of the series playing out on November 17. Boasting a mouth-watering ₹8 Crores in guaranteed prizes, the FTS will continue till November 23, and six of its featured tournaments will be live-streamed on multiple platforms. The first of these featured events to be live-streamed is the FTS Kick-Off, which starts at 6 PM today.

The festival of Diwali may be over, but the fireworks on the online felts have not let up. Persisting with excitement, PokerStars India has announced the return of its Diwali Rush series. Running from November 22 to 29, the 55-tourney series promises ₹2.74 Crores in prize pool guarantees.

There was a surprise announcement from the World Series of Poker (WSOP) this weekend, with the brand announcing a $10K buy-in NLHE World Championship Main Event to crown the 51st WSOP Main Event champion. The event will be a live-online hybrid that will be hosted on GGPoker and WSOP.com. The final table of the two legs of the Main Event will play out live at King’s Casino Rozvadov (GGPoker FT) and Rio-All Suite Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas (WSOP.com), respectively, with the two winners from each location playing down to a champion in Las Vegas on December 30.

In other news, the Corporation of City of Panaji (CCP) has finally accorded its formal approval for renewing the trade licenses for the six offshore casinos anchored on River Mandovi.

From the live international circuit, 21-year-old poker prodigy Landon Tice clinched his career-first live title in the 2020 Mid-States Poker Tour (MSPT) Venetian $1,100 Main Event for a personal-best $201,529.

Online Railbird Report

The inaugural World Poker Tour (WPT) India Online is well underway now, and headlining the maestros who dominated the online felts was the former Game Changer champion, Siddhanth ‘Sidstack’ Kripalani. Kripalani trounced the 137-strong field in the week`s featured WPT Online tourney at Adda52 – the ₹65 Lakhs GTD WPT India Super High Roller to pocket a massive ₹19.38 Lakhs in prize money along with the WPT Trophy. While his stellar title win is his second-best career finish, he makes it as our “PokerGuru Star of the Week!!”

Former Godfather champion Tarun ‘aggtarun’ Goyal finished runner-up for ₹12.20 Lakhs. Goyal also placed ninth in the WPT India 6-Max championship on November 15, to pocket ₹75,200, earning a cumulative ₹12.95 Lakhs from the two FT runs alone.

Jasven ‘bajateraho’ Saigal was the other star performer this past week. Saigal championed the WPT Wednesday Feature for ₹5.53 Lakhs and two days later, placed third to Kripalani and Goyal in the WPT India Super High Roller for ₹8.97 Lakhs, adding a whopping ₹14.50 Lakhs to his tally.

PokerGuru Ambassador and the 2019 WPT India Main Event champion Ashish ‘ragspoker’ Munot was another seven-figure winner. He collected ₹13.06 Lakhs over a week’s grind – the majority of it from three FT scores that included a third-place finish worth ₹1.81 Lakhs in The Weekly Highroller on November 14. The next day, he placed sixth in the Titan Stack for ₹69,550. But Munot really got to work on Sunday when he won his second WPT in the WPT Mega Stack for ₹9.03 Lakhs. The same day, he placed seventh in Spartan Poker’s Sunday SuperStack for ₹1.12 Lakhs.

Pratibha ‘TeamRocket’ Arya, who can brag of being one of the country’s most prominent female poker players, also hogged the headlines after she outlasted a 376-player field to win the WPT India 6-Max Championship for ₹9.40 Lakhs

Young Gun Siddharth ‘skaria1’ Karia (WPT Thursday Feature ₹30 Lakhs GTD for ₹8.08 Lakhs), ‘Paperboi’ (The Elite ₹35 Lakhs GTD for ₹7.75 Lakhs), PokerGuru Ambassador Laksh ‘LuckyBhai$’ Pal Singh (Destiny ₹25 Lakhs GTD for ₹7.17 Lakhs), Bharat ‘dorasingh’ Vasan (Sunday Superstack ₹35 Lakhs GTD for ₹6.77 Lakhs) and PokerGuru Ambassador Madhav ‘madzoopa’ Gupta (WPT Tuesday Feature tournament for ₹6.55 Lakhs) were the other prominent scorers this week.

The notable winners of the week include –

Akash Sharma Leads 25 Week #2 Qualifiers in PokerStars India’s “Star of the Month” November Race

The PokerStars India “Star of the Month” – November leaderboard race completed its second week on Sunday. Leading another group of 25 qualifiers to the month-ending Leaderboard Finale was the ₹5 Lakhs GTD Night on Stars champion, Akash ‘as5072828’ Sharma (744 points). Amar B ‘PsykoEko’ Iyer (580 points) and Mahesh ‘masteroffelts’ Shyamsundar (487 points) ranked second and third in the leaderboard standings.

Read the complete report here

IPC’s ₹8 Crores GTD Final Table Series Gets Underway on Spartan Poker

IPC`s ₹8 Crores GTD Final Table Series got off to a flying start on November 16. The inaugural series will live-stream the final table of six of its featured events, with some of the world’s most renowned poker players, including UK’s top poker pro Sam Razavi, two-time WSOP bracelet winner Kevin Macphee, and Maria Ho to provide commentary and insights. The funnyman Ramesh Thotapalli and poker mom Radhika Shankar will also lend their voices to the live-stream.

Headlining the action will be the ₹2 Crores GTD FTS Main Event, where the winner walks away with an 18K Gold and diamond-studded Medallion along with a ₹10 Lakhs sponsorship from IPC, certificates, and gift hampers.

Read the complete report here

PokerStars India’s Diwali Rush Promises ₹2.74 Crores (Nov 22 – 29)

Keeping the festive spirits going well after Diwali, PokerStars India is rolling out the Diwali Rush series on November 22. The online fest has ₹2.74 Crores guaranteed across 55 tournaments and will offer eight days of non-stop action until November 27.

The showstopper will be the ₹50 Lakhs GTD PKO Main Event slated for November 29.

Read the complete report here

WSOP Announces Online-Live $10K Main Event

The WSOP has surprised the poker community by announcing a $10K buy-in NLHE World Championship Main Event that will feature a live-online hybrid structure. The Main Event will make two parallel runs on GGPoker and WSOP.com, with each of the final tables to play out live – King’s Casino Rozvadov for the GGPoker FT and the Rio-All Suite Hotel and Casino for the WSOP.com FT, respectively. The final two winners will then clash over a heads-up match in Las Vegas on December 30, and the eventual champion will be crowned as the 51^st Main Event champion. In addition to the gold bracelet, he/she will win an additional $1 Million in prize money.

Read the complete report here

CCP Approves Renewal of Offshore Casino Trade Licenses

The Corporation of City of Panaji (CCP), in a Council meeting on November 11, granted its formal approval to renew the trade licenses for the six offshore casinos operating from River Mandovi.

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.