As most of you know I got 2nd in the WGF 1 lac tournament, it would have been pretty good to win, nevertheless, I was pretty happy with my result and my play over the weekend.The event itself was one of its kind in India and ended up getting 85 entrants and 5 re-entries to get the prize pool to 90 Lakhs, since it was 1 crore gtd there was 10 lac overlay giving good value to players, since along with the overlay in prizepool, most players either got 20k in casino play chips rebate OR flights/hotels paid for the duration of the event. In my experience the event could have been better organized, the organizers didn’t seem to care much about the players but more about getting good coverage (pictures/videos probably to promote future events). We were even given a briefing before the final table for which we had to wait 2-3 hrs after busting the bubble and had to wait another 2 hrs after the final table for prize ceremony (no option to collect your money and leave, you had to stay back), kinda frustrating to just hang around in the casino with not much to do. Luckily Craig did an awesome job of doing whatever he could to accommodate the players and would have obviously not have the long delays in the middle if it was up to him, but overall him and the entire staff did an awesome job, the CR dealers are by far the most experienced and well trained and live up to any International standards. I spoke to some of the people from organizing team and I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt since it was their first event, but I do hope they take all the feedback they got and improve if they do plan to do future events.
Now to the tournament itself, we started with 15k chips at 25-50 and I unfortunately put on one of the tougher tables with Kavin Shah, Prashant and Nikhil Jain and later in the day we had Samohh, Nitesh, Bobi Suri, Rajesh Goyal and Rohit Bhalla on our table which did not break the entire day. Some interesting hands, I got my first double up which I flatted Nikhil’s ep raise with 44, flop came beatiful A 4 8r and he led for 600 or so after raising 425 pre flop, I flatted and raised his 1200 bet on an 8 turn to 3300, he called. River was a blank and he check called my pot size shove and I got my first dbl up (he told me later he had 68 for turned trips). After that I basically played tight for most part before I flopped a fullhouse with 77 on A A 7 flop in 4 way single raised pot, flop was checked around and I just flatted a big bet from the original raiser on a brick turn but he check folded to my bet on river. I was able to play a big aggressive with lot of people getting short and table getting softer with Prashant and Kavin’s elimination. I also picked up KK towards end of the day and won a decent pot when I flopped top set, but beside that there were no big hands. I did loose one allin showdown preflop with AJ to Anjali Pandey’s TT but it was 1/4th of my stack and still left me with chips. Right before the day ended I had 105k at 4k-8k, Rohit Bhalla opened button to 16k (not sure but I think we were 7 handed at the table tht time and bubble approaching), sb folded and I looked down at A7ss, Rohit it very good cash game player but I wasnt sure how balanced he was here in this particular spot, he doesn’t play much tournaments and could have a very wide range here on btn and he had been pretty active up to this point, SO I ripped it in and got snapped by his JJ. I binked a Ace on the turn and shot into top 3 to end the day with 13 left.
Day 2 went pretty fast, we played only 5 hands and lost 4 people. The 2nd hand of the day shortstack shoved for 43k at 5k-10k, I looked down at JJ and went allin for 190k, Bobi Suri behind me started cursing and seemed genuinely upset at the decision he had and very reluctantly folded AQ face up, shortstack had k9ss and my JJ held up (bobi wud hv turned an Ace had he called to win a 550k pot and eliminate 2 people). Rajesh Goyal who played very well throughout the tournament was our unfortunate bubble when Bobi cracked his QQ with KT. We had to wait a long time and then line up and smile for the cameras (rly?) as we proceeded to final table on the 2nd floor.
Action on the final table was pretty fast and furious,I started aggressive raising a few pots and was lucky to knock out Dhaval Mudgal when he shoved his shortstack with AJ utg and ran into my AQ. Bobi and Nitesh got into it 5 handed with Nitesh just running over the table, he was open shoving 70% of hands and with the blinds and antes so big it didnt take much time for him to go from shortstack to CL. Nitesh is high stake cash game player and despises tournaments, he didnt care much of money jumps and was able to use his aggression to chip up very well but he made one bad reshove on Bobi, in a spot where it seemed Bobi wasnt folding much and snapped Nitesh’s reshove with KQ and held for CL pot against his 9To. After that Bobi went on a card rush and knocked out everyone else till we got HU. HU I started 3-1 underdog and but dbled with A2 vs his k9, then I lost a pot where he min raised button (10k-20k blinds) I called with Ks7d flop was As 4s Qs, it went check check. Turn was a brick 2, I led for 55k and he min raised to 110k, I called.River was a 5h and he bet 150k when I checked, I took a long time and folded and was shown K6hh for complete airball. Last hand at 10-20k I limped btn with 450k or so and he just jammed in the bb and I snapped him with 55, I figured he was gonna raise to 70-80k a lot over my btn limp and I could jam over that but when he just jammed I had to call with 55 since his range is so wide and he did hv k8hh and hit a K on flop to win. He played really well and I was pretty happy for him and he deserved to win having done all the hard work on final table, big Congrats to Bobi for winning the event, lotta people seemed to be rubbed the wrong way by him but he is a funny guy who just loves pushing people’s buttons and putting them on tilt. I got 14,51,000 INR after TDS was deducted, would have been awesome to win the biggest tournament India but cant really complain and I did what I could to do my best.
I have decided to stay in Goa and take care of some business as well as play IPP starting Wednesday, catch me and all the PokerGuru pros progress as we bring you live coverage of the event from Casino Royale.