In our latest #ChampionsSpeak interview, we have with us Aniket Waghmare who won his second The Millionaire title on Spartan Poker. Aniket had won his first Millionaire title in Jan 2021 where he bested 770 players in the IOPC Millionaire Legends to take home over ₹36 Lakhs.

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On Sunday, Aniket beat out a field of 1,534 players of The Millionaire to win over ₹20 Lakhs for his top place finish. In this casual chat, we discuss Aniket’s poker journey – his introduction to the game, the decision to take it up professionally, his opinions on downswings, his study routine, and finally his poker ambitions. Read on to learn his story.

Aniket had an amazing Sunday with deep runs in multiple tournaments including PokerBaazi’s BSS Superstack (4th place for ₹1.40 Lakhs), Adda52 Millions (18th place for ₹22,000), and of course Spartan Poker’s The Millionaire (1st place for ₹20 Lakhs). Speaking about his grind and The Millionaire’s final table, Aniket tells us, “There’s always a certain hype around each Sunday as it has all the major tournaments, with The Millionaire being the biggest of them. I had two decent stacks going into Day 2, and it was pretty smooth sailing for the most part. As the final table play began, I was the chip leader and I didn’t face any real contests until we were playing heads-ups. But I was confident that I would be able to ship it, and luckily I did.”

We then spoke to Aniket about his poker journey, got to know that he picked up the game when a poker site had conducted a poker tournament at his college fest in 2014-15, and that was his introduction to the world of online poker. He played recreationally till about 2018. He further told us that he was always analytical by nature and had enjoyed playing chess from a very young age, and it was not long before he started taking poker seriously as well. Speaking about his decision to turn professional, he told us, “I have always liked engineering, and wanted to be a programmer.” Then in 2018-19 after a string of great scores, he decided to take poker more seriously. Then late last year I decided to get into poker full time. Prior to that, I was trying to balance poker with my freelance work.”

When asked about downswings in the game, Aniket quips, “Bankroll management is the name of the game. Downswings are a part of poker, but as long as you are managing your bankroll well, it is fine. Sometimes I too have to get lucky to win, and I shrug it off when I’m on the receiving end of a bad beat.”

Touching upon his training routine and future plans, Aniket tells us, “Prior to last year, I was watching random videos to improve my game. But now, I follow a more structured process where I analyze hands, do solver simulations, and complete poker courses.

I am not fully satisfied with myself as yet, because I believe I have a lot more to improve on and work on my game. As of now my goal for the immediate future is to train and get better at poker, so that eventually I am not just a top pro in India, but a top player worldwide. I don’t have a lot of experience playing live poker, so that is also something I look forward to doing.”

Continuing the conversation, we ask Aniket to tell us some of the players he looks up to in the circuit, and the first name he took and credit to as a mentor was, Anant Purohit, who he considers instrumental in turning him into a professional player. Aniket also credits Anmol Mehta, Neel Joshi, and a few others for their incredible work ethic. He tries to emulate the work that these top players put into improving their game.

When asked about his most memorable moments that were a part of his poker journey till date, Aniket tells us, “There have been many memorable moments, but I will always cherish my first big win in 2018 – Destiny on Spartan Poker as it catapulted my decision to take it up Poker as a profession”

Cheers to Aniket and we love his passion for the game. Here’s hoping we see more of him championing marquee events.