In Conversation With The Big Million Champion – Kalyan ‘Indiansharebroker’ Chakravarthy

4th March 2018 was a historic moment for poker in India with Adda52’s biggest online tournament – Big Millions making a grand debut. The marquee event featuring INR 1 Crore GTD at just INR 11K buy-in proved to be a grand success, as it attracted a massive participation with 1175 entries (750 unique entries and 425 re-entries) and took the prize pool to a whopping INR 1,17,50,000.

The Big Millions final table was reached with Kalyan ‘Indiansharebroker’ Chakravarthy leading the final 8 players with 7605563 chips. Following him was ‘assassinato’ with 2460787 chips. Sitting in the 3rd place was ‘A_Sushant’ with 2158574 chips. The other final tablists included ‘orionn7’ (1826193), ‘mihirparv’ (1234,483), ‘Stackattack7’ (1220621), ‘shash26’ (852103), and ‘checkshove’ (266676).

This past Saturday (10th March), all the final tablists returned to Deltin Royale, Goa to play it live for their share of INR 1,17,50,000. Kalyan ‘Indiansharebroker’ Chakravarthy started the final table as the massive chip leader and kept his momentum till the end, winning the coveted Big Millions title for INR 28,50,550 after beating Shashwat ‘shash26’Agarwal, who settled for INR 15,48,650 for his efforts.

The last hand saw Agarwal holding Ac-5h and Chakravarthy having Qc-8d. The board was 3h-10s-Qs-2d-Ks. Perhaps, the poker Gods were with Chakravarthy, who flopped a queen to win the title.

OPN India caught up with Chakravarthy after the big win in Goa. Here are the excerpts of the chat:

How do you feel after shipping this marquee event?

It’s really great to win this one. The experience itself was quite different as it was an online and live mix event. I think it’s great for the game, as it encourages a lot of people to go for the win. I believe, watching the final table will be funnier than watching hours and hours right from the early levels.

Your Thoughts on the Big Millions tournament?

Yeah, it’s a very well-structured event with the FT being live in Goa. I am expecting Adda52 would repeat these events frequently. For me, meeting players from different backgrounds and playing with them in Goa was a different experience. So cheers to Adda52 for organizing such a great event!

Any special hand or memory from the final table?

Yeah, it was the last hand, I was applying a lot of pressure on him (‘shash26’) pre- flop and trying to get around a lot of fold equity. He had a short stack of around 13BB and was limping a lot from Button. I was shoving wide from BB and did the same with Q-8o and he decided to make the call and as it turned out we won it.

Any plans on what you’re going to do with this money?

Hahaha! No plans as such, but I was already planning to go for the APPT Macau. So, probably this time I will be going there and maybe I will go to play a few other events in future.

Finally, any inspiring words for the upcoming poker players?

I would suggest upcoming players to understand the role of variance and manage their bankroll accordingly. As far as Indian players, a lot of people have started playing tourneys full time and I think results are quite visible for them pretty soon as the fields are soft in general. So, if you have got the determination to learn it’s not too far. Good luck at the tables to everyone. Cheers!

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