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The second stop of World Poker Tour (WPT) India has entered its final day and what a series it has been! After the record-breaking participation in the ₹55K Main Event, the penultimate day of the series saw two other events running alongside each other.
The ₹100K High Roller was the biggest buy-in tournament at the stop and taking home the title was Hyderabad-native Kalyan Chakravarthy (cover image). He outlasted 120 entries in the event to become the new WPT India High Roller champion.
Alongside, the final event on the schedule, i.e. the ₹20K Megastack Turbo attracted 99 entries and has now reached its final table, with the action scheduled to resume today.
Chakravarthy has a growing presence in poker and has been consistently posting scores across tournaments in the international circuit. Following a runner-up finish in the HK$18,000 NLHE Doupai Cup Main Event for ₹54,68,434 (February 2018) and a seventh-place finish in the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) Macau HK$20K NLHE Deepstack for ₹9,42,356 (March 2018), Chakravarthy famously shipped the Venetian DCPS 2018 $600 NLH Monster Stack at The Venetian at Las Vegas for a career-best $147,233 (~₹1.01 Crore) in July this year. With this win, he picked up his maiden WPT title, along with adding ₹37.53 Lakhs to his bankroll!
The two-day tournament attracted 120 runners and though the numbers were less than the event’s inaugural run in 2017 (148 entries), the WPT fervor was in palpable as the crème-de-la crème of Indian poker turned up for a chance to win the coveted WPT title.
Among the 74 runners who advanced to Day 2 were Team PokerStars India pros Aditya Agarwal and Muskan Sethi, Madhav Gupta, Vikram ‘Lungi’ Kumar, World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner Aditya Sushant, Jayjit Ray, CEO of PokerBaazi Navkiran Singh, ₹35K Superstack winner Abhishek Jalan, The Indian Poker Series (TIPS) co-founder Jaydeep Dawer, Sanjay Taneja, Abhishek Rathod and Eka Vedantham. None of them managed to cross the money line.
The final table was reached couple of hours into play on Day 2. Even before the final table kicked off, Chakravarthy, who had entered the final table as the chip leader, seemed to be the crowd favorite, with a large group “betting” on him to take the event down. And sure enough, with quiet confidence, this IIT Delhi graduate shunted seven players to the rail as he went on to win the event. Chakravarthy came up against former Bollywood actor Minissha Lamba in the heads-up play with a strong lead and it wasn’t long before Chakravarthy defeated the Adda52 Celebrity pro to win the title.
Meanwhile, talking to media persons after the event, runner-up Lamba, who had methodically played her way into the finale with an adaptive approach, thanked Adda52 pro Kunal Patni for mentoring her, candidly adding that she needed better training from Patni to ship the next High Roller event she plays.
The top 18 finishers made it in the money. The money bubble saw an interesting double elimination with both Pranav Bagai and Alok Birewar busted on different tables at the same time. While Bagai lost with pocket aces to an opponent’s single carder flush, Birewar’s ace-jack were defeated by Raghav Bansal’s pair of kings. Both Bagai and Birewar chopped the 18th place prize money i.e. ₹ 2.45 Lakhs and took ₹1,22,500 each.
Mayank Jaggi (11th for ₹3.29 Lakhs), Sahil Agarwal (12th for ₹3.29 Lakhs), Sanjay Sharma (15th for ₹2.85 Lakhs), Vivek Rughani (16th for ₹2.45 Lakhs) and Adda52 pro Kunal Patni (17th for ₹2.45 Lakhs), were some notables who picked up scores.
Missing the final table by a whisker was Ashish Munot (10th for ₹3,29,000), who saw his busting to Lamba’s on the runout .
Action was fast and furious on the final table and Chakravarthy, who started out as the biggest stack, put the advantage to good use as he relegated one player after the other to the rail.
He first targeted his guns on Raghav Bansal who shoved 240,000 all-in from the small blind with and Chakravarthy called from the big blind holding . The saw Chakravarthy hit one pair to take the lead, which he maintained on the turn and the river. As a surprised rail looked on, Bansal made an early exit in ninth place.
Kompella Ganesh was then dealt suited against AbhinavIyer’s . The flop ran and Ganesh couldn’t better Iyer’s pocket sevens, to be eliminated in eighth place.
Mayank Agarwal, who had eliminated Tarun Goyal on his way to the final table, was another player sent packing by Chakravarthy. On his final hand, Agarwal shoved 8 big blinds with into Chakravarthy’s . While Agarwal was looking strong on the flop , Chakravarthy beat the odds when the appeared on the turn. Agarwal saw no help coming from the river and crashed out in seventh place.
Next up, Aditya ‘Bitti’ Agarwal who held shoved from the big blind ran but ran into Chakravarthy who called off with from the small blind. Both players checked the flop . The turn improved Chakravarthy to a flush draw but Agarwal hit a six-high straight. Chakravarthy led out for 25,000 and Agarwal made it 1,00,000 to call. Chakravarthy called to see the completing his flush and he collected the pot sending Agarwal to the rail in sixth place.
Chakravarthy`s next victim was Ankit Kapoor. The short-stacked Kapoor moved all in with and found a caller in Chakravarthy who tabled . The board ran and Chakravarthy’s two pair eliminatedKapoor in fifth place.
It was Chakravarthy who delivered the knockout punch again; this time it was Young Gun Abhinav Iyer who was at the receiving end of the blow. Iyer had moved all-in several times on the final table but his final attempt had him committing all his chips with against Chakravarthy’s . Chakravarthyimproved to a three-of-a-kind on the flop making the turn and river mere formalities. Iyer was out in fourth place.
The three-handed play then saw Amit Ajwani move all in with against Chakravarthy’s . Ajwani was drawing very thin and the escape route got even tougher as the flop opened . The turn and the river ended Ajwani’s impressive run in the tournament in third place.
Ajwani’s elimination left only Chakravarthy and Minissha Lamba in the race for the title. Lamba had navigated her way into the heads-up with easy confidence, all the while maintaining a healthy stack to play with. Though Chakravarthy began the heads-up with a four-to-one lead, Lamba looked undeterred. However, she ended up running her against Chakravarthy’s . Chakravarthy had Lamba dominated and saw even better news as the flop opened . Lamba’s hopes turned sour as the appeared on the turn. Lamba was drawing dead even before the appeared of the river, declaring Chakravarthy as the winner.
1. Kalyan Chakravarthy – ₹37,53,000
2. Minissha Lamba – ₹23,63,000
3. Amit Ajwani – ₹14,03,000
4. Abhinav Iyer – ₹8,46,000
5. Ankit Kapoor – ₹6,58,000
6. Aditya ‘Bitti’ Agarwal – ₹5,51,000
7. Mayank Agarwal – ₹4,77,000
8. Kompella Ganesh – ₹4,24,000
9. Raghav Bansal – ₹3,75,520
The series-closer at the2018 WPT India i.e. the Megastack Turbo NLH event saw 99 entries ponying up the ₹20,000 buy-in on Monday and played down to the nine-handed final table yesterday.
The nine finalists are –Anant Purohit, Siddharth Mishra, Vinay Rajpal, Himanshu Arora, Siddarth Singhvi, Nitin Gupta, Ankit Takle, Tathagata Sengupta and Shashank Jain.
This is the second final table appearance for Rajpal at this series. He missed his chance at the WPT title in the ₹35K Superstack where he finished third. Rajpal will have to maneuver through the challenging field today that has seasoned faces like Jain, Takle and Sengupta in the running.
Entries for the event remained opened till level 9 and the payouts were announced several hours later, with the top 13 players set to take home a minimum₹46,780 and the winner purse worth ₹5.71 Lakhs.
Notables who fell short of the final table included Rubin Labroo (10th for ₹51,500), Randeep Lather (11th for ₹51,500), Ranjeet Negi (12th for₹51,500) and ZarvanTumboli (13th for ₹46,780).
Puneet Dua and Rahul Marwaha were also spotted gunning in the event but were eliminated empty-handed.
The final table chip counts were not available at the time of publishing this report.
Content and images courtesy: onlinepokernews.in/PokerNews India
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