The World Poker Tour (WPT) India is one of the most preferred poker festivals on the calendars of poker pros and enthusiasts not only from India, but also from the rest of the world. This year’s edition of the festival was completed a few days ago at India’s luxurious casino – Deltin Royale, Goa.
Over the course of one week, more than 1535 entries participated in the festival to contend for the titles, trophies, and life-changing uptop prizes. The series featured 8 exciting tournaments this year, with buy-ins starting from just INR 7K and going all the way upto INR 55K for the Main Event and INR 100K for the High Roller event. The Main Event was a grand success as the series’ showstopper drew in an impressive 630 entries and created INR 3.28 Crores prizepool that was shared by the top 79 players.
The rising talent Ashish Munot emerged as the eventual champion of the 55K Main Event to scoop a whopping INR 60, 99,885, the biggest payout awarded to a winner at the series. UK-based Yasheel Doddanavar defeated a strong field of 127 entries to win the 100k High Roller for INR 34,64,965.
Here is a look at the big winners from this year’s edition of the popular tournament poker festival:
WPT India 2019 20K Kickoff NLHE (Event 1)
The WPT India 2019 kicked off with the 20K buy-in Kickoff NLH event, a two-day event that drew as many as 161 entries and crowned a champion in a relatively lesser-known player Guru Kumar, who played really well in the series-opener and eliminated the likes of Vineet Kumar and eventual runner-up Ayush Garg to clinch his first-ever live title along with his career-best INR 8.05 Lac! Top 21 finishers were paid out in the opening tournament with a min-cash of INR 39,400. Ayush Garg took home an impressive INR 5,27,500 for his runner-up finish.
Final Table Payouts
- Guru Kumar – INR 8,05,000
- Ayush Garg – INR 5,27,500
- Vikram Kumar – INR 3,10,800
- Vaibhav Sharma – INR 1,89,200
- Himanshu Arora – INR 1,46,000
- Asheesh Naag – INR 1,21,000
- Nirav Parekh – INR 1,04,876
- Anand Babu – INR 92,400
WPT India 2019 35K Superstack NLHE (Event 2)
The second on the schedule was the 35K Superstack NLH event, again a two-day event that drew a field of 168 entries and generated INR 58.80 lac in total prizepool, which was eventually shared by the top 21 finishers. The largest share of the prizepool went to Asif Anis who beat the recent BPT Kickoff champion Abhijeet Shetty in heads-up to win his first-ever live title for INR 14.70 Lac in prizemoney.
Anis is a regular at the Deltin Royale casino in Goa and has already played several DPT events and even the last WPT series where he had cashed INR 1,08,700 for his 66th place finish in the Main Event. As mentioned above, it was the first-live title for Anis and it took his total live earnings to $20,639.
Final Table Payouts
- Asif Anis – INR 14,70,440
- Abhijeet Shetty – INR 9,63,380
- Vidur Singhal – INR 5,67,570
- Akshay Jain – INR 3,45,460
- Ankit Jajodia – INR 2,66,540
- Raghav Bansal – INR 2,21,000
- Vaibhav Sharma – INR 1,91,415
- Debashis Bal – INR 1,68,720
- Harshit Chopra – INR 1,47,040
WPT India 2019 25K Big Bounty NLHE (Event 3)
The third event of the WPT India 2019 series was the 25K Big Bounty NLH event, which drew a field of 225 entries. Emerging victorious in this event was the young and talented Sriharsha Doddapaneni who defeated Ranjeet Negi in heads-up to clinch his first-ever WPT title for INR 6.63 Lac prize money! Top 29 players made money with a min-cash of INR 19,500.
Doddapaneni is a well-known name in both the live and online circuits with plenty of scores under his belt. His claim to fame was the DPT Colossus 200K Super High Roller title that he won for a hefty INR 28.70 Lac in April last year. He was also part of the Indian contingent that traveled to WSOP this year, and he did pretty well by bagging six cashes at the series for a cumulative $15,041.
Final Table Payouts
- Sriharsha Doddapaneni – INR 6,63,830
- Ranjeet Negi – INR 4,66,150
- Anshul Rajput – INR 2,88,740
- Aakash Diwan – INR 1,75,640
- Sravanth Reddy – INR 1,35,640
- Karan Kapoor – INR 1,12,400
- Kaushal Samant – INR 95,780
- Tanmai Relwani – INR 81,700
- Anshul Garg – INR 66,400
WPT India 2019 55K Main Event (Event 4)
The showstopper of the WPT India 2019 was its 55K Main Event (18th to 21st October 2019), which went on to become a grand success, registering a total of 630 entries to smash its 3.25 Crore guarantee and create 3.28 Crore prizepool, which was shared by the top 79 finishers.
Coming out on top was Ashish Munot who defeated Yuvraj Chaudhary in heads-up to clinch his first-ever WPT title for INR 60, 99,885. Munot is no stranger to winning big in poker. He has already scored plenty of online cashes. On the live felts, he had one major title last year and that came from his win in the Baadshah Kickoff Event in October last year. He has been working hard on his game and it is showing in his results. His previous best live score came in July this year when he finished 6th in the APT Vietnam Championships Event for $13,854. Munot broke his previous best live score just a few days back when he won the WPT India 2019 Main Event title to take home a life-changing INR 60, 99,885, along with a $3,500 WPT Passport which can be used at any global WPT Event.
Final Table Payouts
- Ashish Munot – INR 60, 99,885
- Yuvraj Chaudhary – INR 42,77,605
- Jai Saha – INR 27,53,290
- Rajeev Kanjani – INR 19,87,220
- Sami Sipila – INR 15,24,970
- Sahil Nair – INR 12,28,645
- Nishant Sharma – INR 10,20,340
- Yash Punjawat – INR 8,13,010
- Shardul Parthasarathi – INR 6,09,920
WPT India 2019 SHIP IT NLHE (Event 5)
While the major focus of the 2019 WPT India series was on the 3.25 Crore GTD Main Event, there were other exciting events taking place simultaneously. One such event was the INR 7k Ship IT Event that drew a field of 90 entries. It was Pratik Mehta who emerged victorious to win his maiden WPT title for INR 2,07,446 after defeating his heads-up mate Karan Kapur who settled for INR 1,18,540.
Final Table Payouts
- Pratik Mehta – INR 2,07,446
- Karan Kapur – INR 1,18,540
- Pankaj Kothari -INR 72,606,
- Sahil Chutani -INR 51,861
- Amit Kumar – INR 40,007
- Abhay Bokadia – INR 31,117
- Ujjwal Vishnani -INR 26,671
- Sanjay Sharma -INR 23,708
- Ronak Agarwal -INR 20,744
WPT India 2019 20K Shootout NLHE (Event 6)
The 20K Shootout NLH event drew 48 entries with the top 5 players receiving payouts. Clive Kikia emerged as the champion and claimed his maiden WPT title for a payday of INR 3,85,728. He reached heads-up with Amon Gupta, who fought well but could not go all the way, eventually finishing 2nd for INR 2,35,200.
Top 5 players made money in this event with a min-cash of INR 75,264 prizemoney. Akash Gupta finished 3rd for INR 1,41,120, while Sam Anand finished 4th in the event for INR 1,03,488.
WPT India 2019 100K High Roller (Event 7)
The biggest buy-in event of the series was the 100K High Roller, which drew 127 entries and crowned a champion in rising talent Yasheel Doddanavar who defeated Aditya G. in heads-up to claim his career-first title for INR 34,64,965. Aditya walked away with INR 21,50,670 for his runner-up finish.
Doddanavar is a UK-based player who has done pretty well on the Asian circuit, specifically at the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) and Asian Poker Tour (APT) stops. In May this year, he came close to winning his first live title in the PHP 107,500 High Rollers 2 at the 2019 APT Philippines, finishing runner-up for PHP 1,225,000 (INR 16.34 Lac). He was also a part of the 50th annual World Series of Poker (WSOP) this year, where he cashed in four events for a cumulative $40,273 (INR 28.52 Lac).
Final Table Payouts
- Yasheel Doddanavar – INR 34,64,965
- Aditya G. – INR 21,50,670
- Kuang Hung Lee – INR 12,84,425
- Abhishek Rathod – INR 8,06,500
- Raman Gujral – INR 5,97,410
- Abhay Kumar Bokadia – INR 5,13,770
- Akash Malik – INR 4,45,070
- Manish Gandhi – INR 3,94,290
- Roshan Rodrigues – INR 3,46,495
WPT India 2019 20K Megastack NLHE (Event 8)
The biggest extravaganza of the year – WPT India 2019 concluded with 20K Megastack NLH event on 21st October 2019. The concluding event found a champion in Madhav Gupta, who is popularly known as ‘Maddy’ in the poker industry. Outlasting a field of 88 entries, Gupta made his way to the top and captured his maiden live title for INR 5.33 Lac, after beating Amit Dhall in heads-up. A total of 11 players walked away with prizemoney in this event, with a min-cash of INR 46,400.
A reputed poker room operator, Gupta has been in good form this year. He was also part of the 50th annual World Series of Poker (WSOP), where he posted a total of five scores for a cumulative $15,528, with his best score coming from Crazy Eights where he finished 188th for $ 7,318. Before that, he had final tabled the WPT Vietnam Kickoff in March, finishing 4th for VND 316,910,000.
Final Table Payouts
- Madhav Gupta – INR 5,33,990
- Amit Dhall – INR 3,22,880
- Somashekhar KM – INR 2,00,700
- Ankit Jajodia – INR 1,35,800
- Saurabh Arora – INR 1,03,500
- Maria Kirloskar – INR 82,800
- Gokul Krishna – INR 68,710
- Naveen Sagar – INR 57,950
- Samit Mehta – INR 53,400