The much anticipated India Poker Championship(IPC) Colombo event slated to happen between July 17-21 in Sri Lanka for the first time ever has been postponed by the organisers. IPC, in a statement on Facebook said that, “The reason for this is Casino Royale’s announcement earlier today about doing an event in the same month and around the same dates as ours.”
Earlier in the day, Casino Royale had also declared through the same social networking site that they will be organising an event in July and in an effort to revive the tournament circuit in Goa, the management of Royale Poker Room was going to absorb the TDS as well. It seems that IPC in a knee jerk reaction to this Casino Royale statement decided to postpone their event so poker players don’t get divided between the two poker tournaments.
It may be recalled that IPC had declared more than a month back that they would be taking the Indian Poker fraternity to Colombo for the first time and the first ever Indian poker league’s season would be happening off the country’s shore. They were even conducting online satellites through Adda52.com. IPC had planned this event in Colombo to help poker players win their total winnings without having to pay TDS since poker players were unhappy for a long time at having to pay heavy amounts as TDS.
IPC further said on Facebook that, “The reason an event was planned an event in Colombo was because players did not see the value of playing in Goa primarily because of the TDS factor. Casino Royale was insistent that TDS was a mandatory deduction even though other venues did not follow through on this and therefore we had to charge TDS in the past couple IPC events. Today they are willing to absorb the TDS in its entirety. These kind of double standards and attempts to sabotage other events/poker rooms has led to the downfall of the poker scene in Goa.”
While Casino Royale is yet to announce their exact dates and schedule, it is learnt that the dates will be the same and that is why IPC postponed their event. The poker community has come out in support of IPC and has reacted strongly. Many poker players who had made travel bookings and other arrangements to attend the event are quire angry.
Indian Poker Pro Sangeeth ‘Samoh’ Mohan expressed his opinion, ” Tournaments in India have NEVER been in the interest of players and it will never ever be.. I know organizers who raked the full 10% in a 20 player field. When its all about money competition is natural. Most tournament organizers do not understand the basic concept of tournaments or ROI.”
Rakesh Sharma, prominent Indian poker player, spoke to us, “I feel even more strongly than before that all poker stakeholders need to come together to deal with what is possibly the most serious crisis being faced by a nascent Indian poker industry. In the last 9 months, all tourney brands have suffered, all poker rooms have taken a hit and most poker players feel a sense of disquiet. We urgently need a forum where all tourney organisers, all poker room owners, managements and players representatives sit and address the issues responsible for this crisis – rakes, guarantees, TDS, clashing dates for tournaments, poor turnouts etc. We need a formal poker body that meets a few times a year to discuss all issues, coordinate the calendar, plan events and promotions and put their heads together to ensure that poker in India regains the growth curve it had before this crisis.”