First India Poker Open Is A Hit In Goa

A back-to-back winner and a near-miss for Card Player India were some of the highlights of the first India Poker Open. The Open, which took place at the Clubs Card room aboard Casino Carnival, Goa, from May 12-15, featured a variety of events including India’s first ever pot-limit Omaha tournament.

The INR 100,000 (Eur 1,572) buy-in no-limit hold’em main event began on the third day of the festival and attracted 30 players, which in turn created a total prize pool of INR 2,700,000 (€42,432). This is one of the largest prize pools in Indian poker tournament history.

With the organisers promising to keep the payouts top-heavy, PokerGuru pro Mihail Stoykov walked away with the first-place prize of INR 1,200,000 (€18,859) after beating his final opponent Card Player India Chief Editor Dhaval Mudgal.

Here are the results and payouts (INR):

1. Mihail Stoykov 1,200,000
2. Dhaval Mudgal 800,000
3. Jasven Saigal 500,000
4. Vedant Thadani 200,000

At this stage, the sixth-place finisher of the main event, Rakesh Agarwal, had become quite a familiar name due to success the two days previous.

Action kicked off on May 12 with a INR 5,000 (€79) re-buy event which saw a total field of 51 players. Re-buys were allowed for the first hour with one add-on after and this led to 37 re-buys and 35 add-ons creating a total prize pool of INR 562,500 (€8,840). Nine places were paid with local regular Rakesh Agarwal taking the top prize of INR 205,000 (€3,222).

The very next day Agarwal was at it again, this time in the INR 10,000 no-limit hold’em freezeout. After 8 hours and 30 minutes Agarwal was crowned champion and added the INR 175,000 (€2,750) first place to his winnings, from a total prize pool of INR 486,000 (€7,638). Agarwal’s performance earned him the “Player of the Series” trophy from the organisers.

The final event was India’s first ever PLO tournament. It attracted limited interest with only 12 players turning out for the event. Pranav Bagai, a member of The Shark, co-organisers of the event (with India Poker Ranking Tournament), was the eventual hero of the experimental event.

The next India Poker Open will take place in August.

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