WPT India: Bhavdeepsingh Jhala Rana Bags the Largest Stack Among 64 Survivors on Main Event Day 1A

Bhavdeepsingh Jhala Rana Leads 64 WPT India Main Event Day 1A survivors
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  • Namita Ghosh October 19, 2019
  • 3 Minutes Read

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.

Sahil Chuttani & Ashish Munot
Sahil Chuttani & Ashish Munot

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.

Nikunj Jhunjhunwala
Nikunj Jhunjhunwala

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!

 

WPT India 55K Main Event – Day 1A Recap

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.

Bhavdeepsingh Jhala Rana
Bhavdeepsingh Jhala Rana

Complete End of Day 1A Chip Counts

PlayerFlightChip Count
Bhavdeepsingh Jhala RanaDay 1A336,500
Sahil ChutaniDay 1A253,000
Ashish MunotDay 1A240,000
Malik GagandeepDay 1A228,000
Haresh KukrejaDay 1A219,500
Gaurav ChauhanDay 1A210,500
Raj TalwarDay 1A206,000
Ankit WadhawanDay 1A188,500
Jayant YewaleDay 1A185,500
Amit MishraDay 1A179,500
Sameer ChaturvediDay 1A173,500
Abhishek ChinyaDay 1A170,500
Vinod Megalmani Day 1A149,500
Vaibhav SharmaDay 1A147,000
Ramandeep GujralDay 1A138,000
Kshitij KucheriaDay 1A135,000
Yash PunjawatDay 1A134,500
Yudhishtir JaswalDay 1A134,000
Abhishek GoindiDay 1A118,500
Yasheel DDay 1A115,500
Mahesh KalraDay 1A115,500
Tyrone Ror Krishan TracyDay 1A112,000
Sashikant KoyaDay 1A109,500
Chiraag Patel Day 1A107,500
Hareesh K NDay 1A104,000
Eka VedanthamDay 1A103,000
Sahil NairDay 1A101,500
Kanishk UpretiDay 1A100,500
Aditya AgarwalDay 1A98,500
Nitish GuptaDay 1A98,000
Maulik DesaiDay 1A95,000
Vijay ReddyDay 1A91,500
Vaibhav AroraDay 1A90,500
Anuj Kumar KodamDay 1A88,000
Sunil SarafDay 1A84,500
Sumit SapraDay 1A83,000
Ayush GargDay 1A81,000
Anil AdianiDay 1A79,500
Aseem JainDay 1A79,500
Manoj SinghDay 1A79,500
Shazman N ShroffDay 1A79,000
Sam AnandDay 1A73,500
Saurabh BahlDay 1A70,000
Bebhav SharmaDay 1A65,500
Ujjwal VishraniDay 1A65,000
Dhaval MudgalDay 1A64,000
Garvit PatodiaDay 1A59,000
Sanjay KandampullyDay 1A58,000
Faiz AlamDay 1A56,000
Mayank AgarwalDay 1A53,000
Sahil AgarwalDay 1A53,000
Kaizad PestonjiDay 1A52,500
Laksh SinghDay 1A52,000
Ronish ShettyDay 1A50,500
Manish FatepuriaDay 1A48,000
Parvathaneni Gokul KrishnaDay 1A47,000
Bibek KarkiDay 1A43,500
Ankit BajajDay 1A40,000
Krishna KumarDay 1A39,500
Phanindra AkkinaDay 1A37,500
Anmol MehtaDay 1A35,500
Michael DorevklintDay 1A35,500
Khorshed AlamDay 1A34,000
Anubhav DeswalDay 1A30,500

Content & Images Courtesy: Online Poker News, India

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