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Monday Motivation With Rishab Malik, Champion of ₹1 Crore GTD The Millionaire For ₹13.75 Lakhs!
It’s always a great feeling when up-and-coming players win the big-guaranteed flagships! Satiating our weekly dose of motivation is Rishab Malik‘s inspiring run in Spartan Poker‘s The Millionaire on Sunday.
The 26-year-old trounced a 1,863-entry field to collect his career-first The Millionaire title for an impressive ₹13.75 Lakhs (cumulatively). In fact, Malik ran deep in three more events that night, netting ₹14.55 Lakhs overall.
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Recapping how things played out on Sunday, Malik said, “Sunday was crazy, man! It was Rakhi. Toh maine apni behen ko bola ki Saturday ko kar lete hain. Toh Jijaji bhi thoda gussa ho gaye and behen bhi kehne lagi ke kya hoga?”
Malik’s insistence on not wanting to miss a Sunday grind eventually paid off. “You can never miss a Sunday. The major scores come from Sunday. So, I made it work. I knew it would be hectic. Poker players wake up like 2-3 in the afternoon. Uske baad uske ghar jana aur fir grind ke liye return karna. Woh bohot zyada time kharab ho jata hai. Proper mental state apna chod dete ho. Toh Rakhi Saturday ko celebrate kar li. So, the grind was hectic, but it was worth it.”
Malik revealed that his brother-in-law first introduced him to the game. He immediately downloaded the Spartan Poker app and began playing. But he wasn’t a winning player from the get-go. “I was losing. Main bachpanse bohot saare sports khela hoon. Ab toh nahi kuch kar pate lekin main bohot competitive hoon. Par main haare hi jaa raha tha. Ye thodi na hai yaar. Dusra banda merese kaise jeet jayega. Toh Wahi maine thodi study kari. Dheere dheere karke cash mein neeche gaye, tounaments mein gaye. College ein bhi pura time phone pe lage rahe. MBA ki bhi tuition li, usme pura time tuition gaye nahi. Classes mein gaye nahi. Puro time phone pe. Fir dheere dheere gaye upar. Dheere dheer karte gaye.”
The Delhi-based poker player has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Khalsa College (Delhi University). After passing out in 2016, Malik worked at his father’s gift accessories company for about a year (2018-19). But he soon realized that working at the company was affecting his poker game and decided to take a break. His family was very accommodating and agreed to let him pursue his poker aspirations.
Speaking about his early days of playing poker, Malik shared how he was one of the online qualifiers for Team Haryana Hunters in Season 1 of the Poker Sports League. His team comprised stalwarts like Samay Parikh, Paawan Bansal, PokerGuru Ambassador Arjanveer Singh Chadha, Rahul Marwaha, and Alok Ranjan. Tomi Brouk and Samuel Vousden were the Wild Cards.
“Team mein bohot ache ache players the. Toh wahan se main zyada ho gaya. Pehle mein semi-professionally bhi nahi tha. Khelte pura time the lekin pata nahi tha ke professionally hum kar kya rahe hain. Lekin haan, kaise taise khel rahe the. But uske baad thodi padhai zyada hoti gayi. Uske saath do-teen dost judhte gaye alag alag. Khud bhi padhte rahe pura time.”
Apart from winning The Millionaire, Malik notes his fifth-place finish in PokerBaazi’s ₹5 Crores GTD EndBoss and his title win in PokerStars India’s ₹40 Lakhs GTD HERCULES as some of his most cherished poker memories.
Malik has made big strides in the game and today sits on an impressive ₹2.68 Crores in recorded online winnings and ₹98.10 Lakhs in net profits.
Sharing the secrets on how he has been improving his gameplay, Malik revealed, “Studying lots of final tables. Pad’s course, Raise Your Edge course. Watching different Twitch streamer like Lex (Veldhuis) and Ben (Spraggs). A lot of small streamers also because they teach you stuff that high-stakes players don’t apply. If you just copy the high stakes gameplay to our Indian fields, some things don’t work.”
“I was always a loner. Sanish (Chhabra) is my good friend. I introduced him to poker. We have each other, so just the two of us,” he added.
Malik’s immediate poker plans are just to keep crushing and getting better at the game. Besides going to the WSOP, his long-term goals are to move to a different country since the taxation laws in India are disadvantageous for poker players, especially the high-scoring ones.
We are confident, this is just the start of many such impressive wins by Rishab Malik!