Super Achiever | ₹9 Crore Club | Ashish Ahuja

Super Achiever Ashish Ahuja
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  • Attreyee Khasnabis October 29, 2021

PokerGuru Ambassador Ashish Ahuja has been quite the revelation over the last two years. Fondly known as ‘Rocky,’ the Chandigarh-based pro’s poker prowess is no secret.

Earlier this month, the criminal lawyer-turned-poker pro hit a new career milestone when he crossed the ₹9 Crores mark in recorded lifetime winnings, joining an elite club of top MTT crushers in the country! Ahuja has joined the likes of Gaurav Sood, Manish Lakhotia, and Arsh Grover, who are the only other players (as per our tracked database) to have achieved this feat.

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The soft-spoken pro was humble in the face of his momentous achievement and said, “I don’t look at the milestone. I just keep playing. I just follow a pattern. I just stick to my game process. I devote my time to studying and playing. Simple as that. You have to balance everything out. We can’t just keep playing or just keep studying and not try to implement that into our game. So, everything is important.”

However, he acknowledged that it was a monumental feat and mentioned that he wants to keep achieving many more feats like this. “It is a major milestone in my poker journey. But I just don’t want to stop here. It’s just a small mark in my journey, and I just want to keep contributing to that. I hope to reach many other such highs in my life.”

Ashish Ahuja
Ashish Ahuja

 

Ashish Ahuja’s key achievements include:

Largest Online Score: ₹11.69 Lakhs

Lifetime Online Winnings: ₹9.27 Crores

Lifetime Online Profits: ₹3.65 Crores

Annual Winnings (2021): ₹2.80 Crores (so far)

Annual Profits (2021): ₹98.13 Lakhs (so far)

Recorded Winnings on Spartan Poker: ₹3.48 Crores

Recorded Winnings on PokerBaazi: ₹2.07 Crores

Recorded Winnings on Adda52: ₹2.24 Crores

Recorded Winnings on PokerStars India: ₹1.45 Crores

The 2020 BPT Kick-Off champion has made a name for himself both on the live and online felts. He had a ‘dream debut’ at the 2019 WSOP when he made it to the final table of Event #42: $600 Mixed NL Hold ’em/PL Omaha Deepstack 8-Handed, finishing fifth for a $48,914 (~₹34 Lakhs) payday. Ahuja at present has ₹1.32 Crores in live tournament winnings.

Speaking about his support system, Ahuja informs that he moved in with his good friend and fellow PokerGuru Staking member Arjanveer Singh Chadha just before the pandemic hit. They study together, help each other in their common goal, and often celebrate their victories together. “Since the pandemic started, I and Arjan moved in together, and its been the best decision of my life. Playing and staying with people who are like-minded is always a great thing. Each one of us pushes each other to the next level so that we can achieve our goals. Poker players don’t have a big circle, so it’s good to have someone on your side, and I am happy that I have my best friend staying with me.”

Arjanveer Singh Chadha
Arjanveer Singh Chadha

 

Presently ranked #5 on the annual leaderboard, Ahuja had finished third in last year’s leaderboard standings. Since then, he has worked dedicatedly to improve his physical health shedding an incredible 20 kgs in just six months.

Ashish Ahuja - Total Profit Graph
Ashish Ahuja – Total Profit Graph

 

Spilling the beans on his motivation behind achieving such an impressive feat, Ahuja revealed, “Poker players have always been reluctant about taking care of their health. They just want to get into the grind. They have odd hours of playing. But at the end of the day, as a human being, it starts taking a toll on your health. So, I thought, let’s try and make an effort on that as well. I took a little break from poker in between, and I thought, let’s look into my health first. And then let’s get back to poker. It feels good when you put in some effort and get rewards for that. I am happy that I was able to transform from what I have been before.”

His physical transformation has undoubtedly improved his gameplay. He shared, “It’s definitely a great mental boost because you start feeling good about yourself. Since it’s a mental sport, once you start feeling good about yourself, you will definitely get good results. I have been able to grind for lengthy hours now, even study more. You just feel good about yourself, and everything falls back into place. You try to do something, and you get there. So, this has definitely been a plus for me, in all aspects and not just my poker life, but my entire life.”

While physical health is essential for any sportsperson, mental health is an aspect people often ignore. Speaking about his own experience with mental health coaching, Ahuja said, “I was taking mindset coaching earlier but could not co-relate with that coach. So, I let him go. But I know mental fitness is a very big thing for poker players. This game involves variance, which is not in your control. You can’t control what is going to happen. So, you have to keep yourself always motivated towards your game, irrespective of the turnouts. So, if someone is feeling low in the poker life, they should definitely seek out a mental coach to help them out.”

While we are on the subject of coaching, you can forget that Ahuja was among the first batch of mentees who India’s poker superstar, Aditya Agarwal, coached through the PokerGuru Staking stable. Ahuja said about his coaching experience, “Adi (Aditya Agarwal) is always a great mentor. Even if he is not teaching us now, you can just call him. He is such a sweetheart. He’ll just answer all your doubts. He’ll support you. Although he is just a mentor, we have foreign coaches for ourselves at PokerGuru Staking.”

He also had some valuable advice to give to players who are currently looking to get coached. “It’s pretty good to be learning from foreign coaches and trying to evolve my game from them. Coaches are there for you, but you also have to put in efforts for yourself as well. People need to learn that you need to grasp as much as you can from your coaches and then put your time into self-study as well. Coaches can show you the path, but you have to walk on it.”

We wish Ashish Ahuja many more successes on his poker journey!

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