The Dragon Hunt continues for Team India in the Macau Poker Cup 23 with 10 Final Table finishes made till Tuesday including the runner-up finish by Madhav Gupta in the $3,000 NLH Turbo. Moreover, Indian poker community has the biggest reason to cheer as Shashank Jain tops the overall list of survivors going into Day 2 of the Red Dragon Main Event with 171,400 chips. A total of 945 runners ponied up the HK$12,000 buy-in to take a shot at the Red Dragon title which accumulated a prize pool of HK$9,899,820 with HK$2.1 million reserved for the champion.
Red Dragon Main Event
213 players survived the 4 flights of the Red Dragon Main Event of MPC23 to enter the Day 2 action. India’s Shashank Jain leads the Day 2 battle underway today at PokerStars LIVE Macau with 171,400 chips. PokerStars pro Vivian Im, Kosei Ichinose and Adda52 Team Spades pro Amit Jain are among the notables in the field. 5 Indian contenders are in the Day 2 battle to slay the dragon with Shashank Jain leading from front. Chandra Mohan (129900) Nikhil Maheswari (117800), Devang Shah (42400) and Amit Jain (32900) are the 4 bolstering India’s chances to win the MPC23 Main event. Karan Punjabi, a player of Indian-origin has also entered the Day 2 battle with 112100 chips. Akash Malik, Apoorva Goel, Adda52 Team Spades pro Aditya Sushant & Kunal Patni, Team Thrill Pros Sahil Agarwal, Shravan Chabbria, Danish Shaikh & Dhaval Mudgal and Team PokerStars pro Aditya Agrawal were among the Indians who couldn’t make it to the Day 2 of the Main Event.
Brilliant performance of Team India in Side Events
MPC23 started with a bang for Team India Kunal Patni making back-to-back Final Table finishes in the 2 events. Abbasali Saleem Hararwala (3rd/HK$24,340) and Srinivasa Narayanasamy (10th/ $4,601) took that forward in the Event #5: $1,500 NLH.
Going further, it was the 2014 ACOP Spadie winner, Anju Abrol placing 5th in the Event #8: Megastack ($500,000 Guarantee) for a sweet pay day of HK$75,600 on Saturday. This was the 9 cash-finish for Anju in Macau and the 5th in Macau Poker Cup.
The weekend action for Indians didn’t stop here as 3 players made a deep run in the Event #10: $3,000 NLH Turbo which started in parallel to the Day 1b of the Red Dragon Main Event. Madhav Gupta was the last Indian standing in this event but unfortunately he missed the title by merely 1 place. Madhav took home HK$92,190 in prize money for his runner-up finish. Kuldeep Deepak Pawar (7th/HK$24,490) and Haresh Kukreja (9th/HK $14,400) were the two to finish on Final Table in this event.
Danish Shaikh made an 8th place finish on the Day 2 of Event #11 – $5,000 NLH while Dhaval Mudgal missed the win after reaching close to it (3rd) in the HK $3,000 Midnight Turbo.