Young Guns of 2020

Young Guns of 2020
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  • Namita Ghosh December 24, 2020
  • 4 Minutes Read

The Indian poker community is a fast-growing close-knit group, and every year we strive to identify the best upcoming talent as our Young Guns. These are the top-of-the-crop players that we believe have the potential of reaching the highest echelons of the game. And it is with a sense of pride that we can assert that many of our former Young Guns are today some of the biggest winners in the game!

As the year is coming to a close, we look back at players who joined this select group in 2020. The Young Guns of 2020 have not only lived up to the pedestal they were placed on, but many among them far exceeded even our lofty expectations from them.

Gaurav Sood was our first Young Gun this year, and what an online beast he has proved to be! Sood climbed up to the top of the annual charts in May and has stayed put there for a record-shattering 33 weeks. No surprise then that he is also the most profitable player this year.

While Sood’s trailblazing run has overshadowed all others, that is not to take away from our other Young Guns’ foot-thumping performances! With the year-end just around the corner, here a quick look at this power-packed gang of poker phenoms featuring Shardul Parthasarathi, Anmol Mehta, Devang Yadav, Anuj Yadav, Devang Yadav, and Kanchan Sharma.

 

Gaurav Sood

Gaurav Sood was the first player we named as a Young Gun this year, and boy, has he outdone all expectations! After making early headway in January when he conquered the ₹1 Crore GTD BPTO Main Event for ₹18.61 Lakhs, Sood went on to win the IOPC #91 PLO High Roller for ₹11.03 Lakhs in February. By May, Sood had asserted his dominance on the annual rankings and was the #1 ranked player in the country.

This Gurgaon-based player, who is a qualified dentist, turned pro last March and has been in unbeatable form for the most part since. He was the first Indian to cross ₹3 Crores in online winnings in 2020 and also the first one to breach the ₹4 Crore-mark.

Now, this is one poker story worth reading and taking inspiration from.

Gaurav Sood

 

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Anuj Yadav

Anuj Yadav has championed some of the biggest flagship tourneys this year to emerge as one of the poker powerhouses. He entered the elite “Millionaire’s Club” by capturing The Millionaire Legends in April for ₹42.93 Lakhs, and just two months later, Yadav won the ₹1 Crore GTD IOPC #99 Super High Roller for ₹35.76 Lakhs. He also shipped the ₹55 Lakhs GTD GPS #34 High Roller for ₹15.71 Lakhs in October, winning the ₹25 Lakhs GTD WPT India Mini Main Event the next month to grab his first WPT trophy.

All of 24, this Young Gun started playing poker in 2017 and has since emerged as a consistent online scorer. He spends most of his free time studying poker and one player we are sure to be talking about for years to come.

Anuj Yadav

 

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Devang Yadav

Like many other top regs, Devang Yadav was seen doubling up his grind hours during the lockdown. He grabbed the headlines in January when he won his first live title in the 2020 BPT ₹25K MegaStack for ₹12.65 Lakhs, and really turned on the heat in May by taking down the ₹1.5 Crores GTD The Millionaire Legends for ₹30 Lakhs.

This Young Gun happens to be an IITian with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He has been playing the game since 2014 and turned pro three years ago. In such a short span, Yadav has already won marquee tourneys like Spartan Poker’s Destiny, TGIF, DareDevil, The Elite, and Adda52’s Mega Suites Finale.

Yadav has already entered the “₹3 Crore-Club” in recorded MTT winnings and is a legend in the making!

Devang Yadav
Devang Yadav

 

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Anmol Mehta

Anmol Mehta grabbed the spotlight on March 12, when he outlasted the final table of PPL #43 Highroller 6-Max ₹50 Lakhs GTD that was moved online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Mehta earned a handsome ₹14.91 Lakhs for his efforts – his best recorded online score yet.

Consistency has been the key for Mehta, who has final tabled numerous events through the year and banked massive cash prizes in flagships like the Sunday Special PKO on PokerStars India, Adda52’s AOPS Calungute, Adda52 Millions, and Mega Suits.

Today, Mehta boasts of over₹3 Crores in MTT winnings, of which he’s earned more than ₹2.4 Crores in 2020. With ₹1.09 Crores of that being his profits, Mehta features proudly among the top 10 on the annual profit charts.

Considering that this poker prodigy from New Delhi, a lawyer by qualification, turned pro only last December, Mehta has proved to be quite a showstopper. He admits to being fascinated by poker’s psychological aspects and seems to on track to making his mark in this competitive sport!

Anmol Mehta

 

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Kanchan Sharma

Kanchan Sharma was one of the few female players to attend the 2020 Baazi Poker Tour (BPT), where she placed 19th in the ₹35 Lakhs GTD BPT Main Event for ₹1.68 Lakhs. Sharma’s hard work has reaped her rich dividends this year, and some of her exploits include a fifth-place score worth ₹9.39 Lakhs in Spartan Poker’s The Millionaire Main Event on February 9. Her finest moment came in November-end when she placed fifth in the ₹2 Crores GTD FTS #19 Main Event for a personal-best ₹13.79 Lakhs.

The 26-year-old got introduced to poker in 2017. Sharma holds a Commerce graduate from Delhi University and worked as a Learning Designer before quitting her job to play poker full-time. She might still be ending 2020 whiskers short of the ₹2 Crore-mark, but having championed marquees like Destiny and, more recently, the Big Slick, The Summit, and the Maverick, Sharma has already made an indelible mark in the community.

Kanchan Sharma
Kanchan Sharma

 

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Shardul Parthasarathi

Shardul Parthasarathi hit the headlines in July when he came whiskers close to taking down PokerBaazi’s ₹2 Crores GTD Game Changer 3.0, finishing runner-up for a career-best ₹26.49 Lakhs.

He got his entry in the poker industry working with PokerDangal, and first made his mark in the live domain, well before his online exploits earned him an enviable reputation. Talking about his breakout live score was his ninth-place finish in the 2019 WPT India Main Event for ₹6.09 Lakhs.

This Chennai-born Mumbai resident may have an engineering degree to his name, but poker is essentially where he truly revels. He’s also a member of Abhishek Goindi’s Poker Boot Camp India and has all the hallmarks of reaching the very top.

Shardul Parthasarathi

 

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Neel Joshi

In May, Pune-based Neel Joshi delivered a truly power-packed performance at PokerBaazi’s ₹5 Crores GTD EndBoss. Joshi came within striking distance to the title, eventually placing runner-up in the country’s most massive tourney to date for a whopping ₹65.01 Lakhs payday.

This is just one of the various accomplishments for this 23-year-old who has displayed exceptional skills both live and online but admits that online poker is more his forte.

Since his EndBoss finish, he has championed the BSS SuperStack and AOPS Holdem Heros and has numerous other FT finishes to his name. Joshi came whiskers close to winning the ₹50 Lakhs GTD DIWALI RUSH-51 Main Event on November 29, where he placed runner-up for ₹4.44 Lakhs.

Today, this chemical engineer from BITS Pilani sits with over ₹3 Crores in recorded winnings across tracked domestic sites and has all the traits of making it as one of the country’s top poker superstars!

Neel Joshi

 

Read the complete feature here

 

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