This Week in Poker: October 14 – 20

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 online poker sites don’t seem to be letting up, and for yet another week, they flooded the virtual felts with big-ticket tourneys. Spartan Poker`s popular Millionaire franchise returned for another run last week with PokerGuru Ambassador Naresh Veeravalli becoming the latest Millionaire champion! Trouncing a 2,132-entry pool, Veeravalli clinched his first Millionaire title for a jaw-dropping ₹17.79 Lakhs. His stellar performance makes him our “PokerGuru Star of the Week!”

PokerBaazi brought back its renowned 1 flight ₹1 Crore GTD MoneyMaker tourney on Sunday. Offering ₹1 Crore in guarantee, the 12th edition of the MoneyMaker was championed by Bengaluru-based pro Banmanlang Lyndem who netted ₹17.46 Lakhs in the top prize.

PokerGuru Ambassador Mithun Mahesh, Chandan Arora, Armaan Kochhar, Sagar Choudhury, Young Gun Arsh Grover, Ankur Sehgal, and PokerGuru Ambassador Gokul Raj were the week`s other top scorers.

PokerStars India’s “Star of the Month” leaderboard completed its second week, with Yash “hasyY@$#116” Shrivastava topping the rankings with 407 points.

World Poker Tour (WPT) is coming back with an annual stop in India; only this time, it’s virtual, i.e., WPT Online India series. The series will be taking place on WPT`s India partner Adda52.com from November 5 to 22 and the complete schedule is now out. Featuring 154 events, the 18-day-long series promises a whopping ₹13.5 Crores in guaranteed prizes, 32 WPT trophies, and leaderboard rewards worth ₹35 Lakhs!

Fast-growing online poker site, Pocket52 has reshuffled its schedule with the launch of the Bullet Value Series. The series kicked off October 16 and will run until October 31, comprising 1,200 high-value tourneys and ₹60 Lakhs in prize pool guarantees.

Poker Sports League’s (PSL) first-ever 2020 Virtual Poker League (VPL) culminated on October 17 with the Deccan Aces emerging as the champions. Led by former Kunal Patni, the Deccan Aces bested Chennai Troopers, even as the Delhi Czars finished third.

In other news, the Gujarat High Court (HC) order dated September 29 was made public last week. The court has asked the government to take appropriate steps towards online gambling, especially rummy in the state.

The inaugural Bounty Hunter Series (BHS) has also been running successfully on international poker network GGPoker/Natural8 and expected to continue until October 25. GGPoker has also come out with an all-new GGSquad, a dedicated team of poker streamers. This elite group comprises of six poker streamers, with prominent poker content creator and former PokerStars pro Kevin Martin becoming the latest to join the ranks.

Online Railbird Report

Cash game specialist and PokerGuru Ambassador Naresh ‘FreeFlow’ Veeravalli had a breakout Sunday. Veeravalli pierced his way through a 2,132-strong field in Spartan Poker’s ₹1 Crore GTD The Millionaire to capture his career-first Millionaire title for a massive ₹17.79 Lakhs! Also, his best online win to date, Veeravalli, boosted his online scorecard to ₹2.42 Crore and is deservedly our “PokerGuru Star of the Week!”

Runner-up Sagar Choudhury pocketed a massive ₹9.96 Lakhs for his performance. Additionally, Choudhury final tabled three other tourneys for ₹11.83 Lakhs in total earnings through the week.

The other star attraction on Sunday was PokerBaazi’s ₹1 Crore GTD MoneyMaker. This was the 12^th edition of the site`s celebrated tournament franchise, and the event garnered 1,027 entries to collect a guarantee-smashing ₹1.30 Crores prize pool. Bengaluru-based Banmanlang ‘bml2012’ Lyndem obliterated the competition to win a personal-best ₹17.46 Lakhs along with the bragging rights of becoming a MoneyMaker champion!

PokerGuru Ambassador Mithun ‘thepokeraja’ Mahesh placed runner-up for ₹12.24 Lakhs.

Another player deserving special mention for his breakout form is Armaan Kochhar. Throughout the week, the MTT reg was on a rampage and won an incredible six titles while making FT finishes in another nine tourneys! Kochhar earned a whopping ₹12.53 Lakhs over the week-long winning spree, and his most prominent win was him taking down the Adda52 Millions for ₹6.86 Lakhs. He also won the Inception for ₹2.08 Lakhs, and the Table For 6 for ₹1.39 Lakhs – to name a few.

Chandan ‘darkfish15’ Arora (Grand Mega Suits ₹60 Lakhs GTD for ₹12 Lakhs), Young Gun Arsh Grover (4^th in The Millionaire for ₹5.30 Lakhs, won Adda52 ₹15 Lakhs GTD The Mint for ₹3.36 Lakhs, won PokerStars India Highroller ₹12 Lakhs GTD for ₹2.37 Lakhs), Ankur ‘Crimemastergogo’ Sehgal (The Elite ₹35 Lakhs GTD for ₹7.40 Lakhs) and PokerGuru Ambassador Gokul ‘Super Kings’ Raj (7^th in The Millionaire for ₹2.64 Lakhs, won Destiny 16.0 Finale for ₹4.50 Lakhs) rounded out this week`s top scorers!

The notable winners of the week include –

Yash Shrivastava Tops the PokerStars India ‘Star of the Month’ Week #2 Leaderboard Standing

The PokerStars India “Star of the Month” leaderboard race completed its second week on Sunday. Twenty-five more players booked their seats through ITM finishes in the two daily qualifying events on the site. Topping the Week #2 list was Yash “hasyY@$#116” Shrivastava, who collected 407 points primarily on the back of winning the ₹6 Lakhs GTD Battle Royale for ₹1.22 Lakhs.

Read the complete report here

WPT Unveils Complete Schedule For Inaugural WPT Online India Series

The complete schedule for the much-awaited 2020 WPT Online India series coming up on Adda52 is out! The series kicks off on November 5 and boasts ₹13.5 Crores in prize pool guarantees across 154 events that run through November 22.

There are a whopping 32 WPT trophies for the taking and leaderboard prizes worth ₹35 Lakhs across the MEGA and MINI leaderboards. Offering the poker-loving audience a chance to virtually enjoy the series, the brand will also be live-streaming many marquee tournies.

Read the complete report here

Pocket52 Launches ₹60 Lakhs GTD Bullet Value Series

India’s first cryptographically secured RNG site, Pocket52, while reshuffling its MTT schedule, introduced a fast-paced series called the Bullet Value Series. The festival commenced on October 16 and will host 1,200 high-value MTT’s promising ₹60 Lakhs in prize pool guarantees until October 31. This also includes a leaderboard race with ₹2.50 Lakhs in cash prizes for the top 25 finishers.

Read the complete report here

Deccan Aces Wins PSL’s Inaugural 2020 Virtual Poker League

As a precursor to its upcoming PSL – V season, Poker Sports League (PSL) hosted an exhibition charity league on its free to play poker app Hashtag Poker. Some of the country’s best poker players battled it out for a ₹10 Lakhs prize pool over four days, and eventually, the team Deccan Aces came out on top, with Chennai Troopers finishing runner-up and Delhi Czars placing third.

This was an #ALLINFORCHARITY league. The winning team donated the top prize of ₹5 Lakhs to ASSCOD, with runner-up and second runner-up teams also donating their prizes of ₹3 Lakhs and ₹2 Lakhs respectively to Super School India and United Way Chennai.

Read the complete report here

Inaugural Bounty Hunter Series Underway on Natural8

The inaugural Bounty Hunter Series (BHS) is successfully running on the GGPoker Network (GGPN). The series has over 500 PLO and NLHE tournaments and will continue till October 25. It also features the newly-introduced Speed Racer format with all players starting with a stack of 10 big blinds.

Alongside the BHS, a special edition of Beat the Pros also kicked off on Saturday.

GGPoker Ambassador Felipe Ramos was among the many champions at the series so far. He took down the BHS #012 Super MILLION$ Bounty Hunters for $212,334.44.

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.