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Friday marked the start of the much-awaited World Poker Tour (WPT) India ₹55K Main Event. The showstopper event at this annual series, the WPT India Main Event has enjoyed a record-breaking run the last two years. In 2018, the Main Event had attracted a record-breaking field of 697 entries, creating what continues to be the biggest prize pool to be generated in a poker tournament in India, a whopping ₹3.62 Crores.
It is highly improbable that the Main Event will outdo or even match last year’s numbers. There has been a significant fall in attendance at all three events that have played out at the series so far, and even Day 1A of the Main Event could only muster 227 entries last night – last year, the first flight had logged in 270 entries.
WPT has put up a very attractive prize pool guarantee of ₹3.25 Crores for the Main Event – the highest prize pool guarantee ever for a poker tournament held in India. In addition to a mouth-watering guarantee, the Main Event also offers a $3,500 worth WPT Passport to the winner. The same can be used at any WPT Global event. This was reason enough for most of the tournament regulars to stay back after the Baazi Poker Tour, and a few even skipped the comeback series for WPT India.
Day 1A got off to a rough start since heavy rainfall and storm forced jetty services to Casino Deltin Royale to be discontinued for a good hour. Resultantly, the tournament organizers had to push back the start time for the Main Event to 4 PM. Despite the delay, Day 1A registered a strong field of 227 entries. A total of thirteen levels, each of 40-minute duration, were played out on Friday before Bhavdeepsingh Jhala Rana came out on the top of the 64 players who remained standing.
With no prior recorded live or online scores to his name, Rana is most likely chasing his first major title, and given the relative inexperience, he did well to carry forward a massive stack of 336,500 for Day 2.
Trailing Rana is the well-known pro Sahil Chuttani (253,000) who was last seen in action at the recently concluded BPT. Another seasoned player, PokerGuru Ambassador Ashish Munot (240,000), completes the trio of the top three stacks.
Several PokerGuru Ambassadors including the BPT 2019 High Roller runner-up Ankit Wadhawan (188,500), Faiz Alam (56,000) and Laksh Pal Singh (52,000) have also made the cut for Day 2, alongside Gagandeep Malik (228,000), IPC 2019 Main Event winner Raj Talwar (206,000), PokerStars India Team Pro Aditya Agarwal (98,500), Sumit Sapra (83,000), and the 2018 WPT Vietnam Main Event champion Dhaval Mudgal (64,000) who is on a run of a lifetime.
Defending champion Nikunj Jhunjhunwala has also flown in to defend his title, and though his first bullet in the Main Event misfired yesterday, it will be safe to assume that he will be using the re-entry option to come back again today for another shot.
There are two more starting flights lined up today, with Day 1B scheduled to play out from 2 PM, followed by Day 1C (Turbo) 11.30 PM onwards. With Day 2 slated to kick off at 3 PM on Sunday, the weekend promises to be long and action-filled!
The WPT India ₹55K Main Event kicked off at 4 PM on Friday, a good hour late from its scheduled start owing to inclement weather conditions. There were thirteen 40-minute levels scheduled to play out, and within the first hour of play, the field had 162 runners in the fray.
By the time registration closed at the end of Level 9, Day 1A had registered 227 entries. Only 64 of the players could find a bag for Day 2, and taking the biggest stack forward was Bhavdeepsingh Jhala Rana.
Rana was first reported in the live coverage in level 9 when he scooped a sizeable pot off Sahil Nevatiya in a classic cooler with his pocket aces dominating the latter’s cowboys. By the time the penultimate level of the night began, Rana was commanding the chip lead with a stack of 380,000. He lost some chips over the last level to end his day with 336,500.
Second to Rana is the well-known circuit regular Sahil Chuttani (253,000) while PokerGuru Ambassador Ashish Munot (240,000) rounds out the top three stacks.
Also taking considerably big stacks to Day 2 are Gagandeep Malik (228,000) and the latest IPC Main Event champion Raj Talwar (206,000).
Yudhishtir Jaswal (134,000), Eka Vedantham (103,000), 2018 WPT India Main Event eighth-place finisher Kanishka Upreti (100,500), PokerStars India Team Pro Aditya Agarwal (98,500), Sumit Sapra (83,000), WPT India 20K Kickup second-place finisher Ayush Garg (81,000), and Dhaval Mudgal (64,000), are among the other notable stacks advancing to Day 2.
Defending champion Nikunj Jhunjhunwala was an early entrant at the event but failed to make it through to Day 2.
Some of the other notables who busted through the day’s proceedings include Aditya Sushant, Abhishek Goindi, Muskan Sethi, Maria Kirloskar, Meherzad Munsaf, Kunal Patni, Minissha Lamba, Raghav Bansal, Vivek Rughani, Ashish Ahuja, Anant Purohit and Siddarth Singhvi.
The Main Event allows for eliminated players to re-enter in future flights, though only one bullet is allowed per flight. It`s a given that most of the pros will be returning today to play either or both Day 1B that starts at 2 PM or Day 1C (Turbo) that takes off at 11.30 PM today.
Complete End of Day 1A Chip Counts
Player | Flight | Chip Count |
---|---|---|
Bhavdeepsingh Jhala Rana | Day 1A | 336,500 |
Sahil Chutani | Day 1A | 253,000 |
Ashish Munot | Day 1A | 240,000 |
Malik Gagandeep | Day 1A | 228,000 |
Haresh Kukreja | Day 1A | 219,500 |
Gaurav Chauhan | Day 1A | 210,500 |
Raj Talwar | Day 1A | 206,000 |
Ankit Wadhawan | Day 1A | 188,500 |
Jayant Yewale | Day 1A | 185,500 |
Amit Mishra | Day 1A | 179,500 |
Sameer Chaturvedi | Day 1A | 173,500 |
Abhishek Chinya | Day 1A | 170,500 |
Vinod Megalmani | Day 1A | 149,500 |
Vaibhav Sharma | Day 1A | 147,000 |
Ramandeep Gujral | Day 1A | 138,000 |
Kshitij Kucheria | Day 1A | 135,000 |
Yash Punjawat | Day 1A | 134,500 |
Yudhishtir Jaswal | Day 1A | 134,000 |
Abhishek Goindi | Day 1A | 118,500 |
Yasheel D | Day 1A | 115,500 |
Mahesh Kalra | Day 1A | 115,500 |
Tyrone Ror Krishan Tracy | Day 1A | 112,000 |
Sashikant Koya | Day 1A | 109,500 |
Chiraag Patel | Day 1A | 107,500 |
Hareesh K N | Day 1A | 104,000 |
Eka Vedantham | Day 1A | 103,000 |
Sahil Nair | Day 1A | 101,500 |
Kanishk Upreti | Day 1A | 100,500 |
Aditya Agarwal | Day 1A | 98,500 |
Nitish Gupta | Day 1A | 98,000 |
Maulik Desai | Day 1A | 95,000 |
Vijay Reddy | Day 1A | 91,500 |
Vaibhav Arora | Day 1A | 90,500 |
Anuj Kumar Kodam | Day 1A | 88,000 |
Sunil Saraf | Day 1A | 84,500 |
Sumit Sapra | Day 1A | 83,000 |
Ayush Garg | Day 1A | 81,000 |
Anil Adiani | Day 1A | 79,500 |
Aseem Jain | Day 1A | 79,500 |
Manoj Singh | Day 1A | 79,500 |
Shazman N Shroff | Day 1A | 79,000 |
Sam Anand | Day 1A | 73,500 |
Saurabh Bahl | Day 1A | 70,000 |
Bebhav Sharma | Day 1A | 65,500 |
Ujjwal Vishrani | Day 1A | 65,000 |
Dhaval Mudgal | Day 1A | 64,000 |
Garvit Patodia | Day 1A | 59,000 |
Sanjay Kandampully | Day 1A | 58,000 |
Faiz Alam | Day 1A | 56,000 |
Mayank Agarwal | Day 1A | 53,000 |
Sahil Agarwal | Day 1A | 53,000 |
Kaizad Pestonji | Day 1A | 52,500 |
Laksh Singh | Day 1A | 52,000 |
Ronish Shetty | Day 1A | 50,500 |
Manish Fatepuria | Day 1A | 48,000 |
Parvathaneni Gokul Krishna | Day 1A | 47,000 |
Bibek Karki | Day 1A | 43,500 |
Ankit Bajaj | Day 1A | 40,000 |
Krishna Kumar | Day 1A | 39,500 |
Phanindra Akkina | Day 1A | 37,500 |
Anmol Mehta | Day 1A | 35,500 |
Michael Dorevklint | Day 1A | 35,500 |
Khorshed Alam | Day 1A | 34,000 |
Anubhav Deswal | Day 1A | 30,500 |
Content & Images Courtesy: Online Poker News, India
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