Ever since Indian Poker Championship (IPC) returned to the tournament poker scene of India, Bangaloreans have been crushing the fields taking down title after titles. Continuing the dominance, Vidwath Shetty won the IPC June 5k Warm Up event taking home Rs 2,50,000 in the top prize. Earlier in January and April editions of IPC, Mukunda Dasharathy and Abhishek Panda had grabbed the opening event titles.
Vidwath has been on a fantastic run for the past few months in Bangalore tournaments. He finished 3rd in the Diamond Deepstack Omaha event of Rockets Anniversary Series and triumphed the 17th weekly Lakhpati event at AndyzFC. The young lad of Bangalore has made his presence felt in the star studded fields of Bangalore and Goa which embarks the rise of another poker talent on the circuit.
Tournament Round-up
The 5k Warm Up event started at 4pm at the Deltin Royale poker room and the head counts crossed the 200 mark in the initial hour and the final number of entrants stopped at 229. Rohit Bhalla, Jasven Saigal, January Main Event winner Sumit Asrani, April ME Winner Kanishka Samant, Rajat Sharma, Sabyasachi Chakraborty and Mukunda Dashraty were among the notables in the field. A prize pool of Rs 9,73,250 was created which organizers announced to distribute among top 23 players. The top prize of Rs 2.5 Lakhs was reserved for the champion of the night.
Early Action
Rajat Sharma, Satosh Govindraj and Hari Kumar were the early elimination in the opening event of June IPC. Rajat’s met the rockets of Pawan Bansal in the preflop war and the board ran dry ending Rajat’s tournament run. Sabyasachi Chakraborty was the leading the field at the first break 29,000 chips. Players kept busting in the short stack structure and the field shrank with every increasing level of blinds. Danish Shaikh hit the rails when Vishrut rivered a set of 10s.
One of the female players in the field, Akansha Singh bid goodbye when Hemant Arora hit a runner-runner straight against her Kings. Shahsank Desai won had won the 10K Freezeout event of IPC January got eliminated against the higher pairs of Randeep Lather.
Midway Play and ITM War
The filed was slashed to half of the initial numbers which intensified the game as many a players had amassed sizeable stacks. Rajnish Kumar was leading the action with 84,400 while Saby was the 2nd in the chip counts with 50,500 chips. Chetan Jain departed when Vishal Gajaria flopped a Quad of Jacks while Rakesh Sharma scooped a huge pot eliminating 2 players – Manot Singh and Raunak Singh in the same hand.
Stacks kept swinging in the field and Kanishka Samant took the lead position just before the money bubble. Sumit Shah became the bubble boy of the event leaving Top 23 assured of money.
Race to the Final Table
Eliminations came faster as the top 23 approached the final table. Sunil Shah, Abhishek Panda and Rajnish Kumar were the early eliminations in the money list. Rakesh Sharma, Vidwath Shetty and Kanishka Samant were going strong in the race to the final table. Rohit Bhalla who had a sizeable stack met Tens of Balaji L to depart in the 12th place. One of the promising tournament regulars, Anudeep Shrinivas walked away in the disappointing 11th place after a deep run in the event. Abbas Ali became the final table bubble which saw Uday Patil in the lead.
The Final Table Battle
Final Table of the 5K Warm Up event saw two quick eliminations in from of Ishan Panjwani (9th) and Rakesh Roysoni (8th). The IPC April ME Champion Kanishka Smanat fell against the top pairs of Vidwath Shetty in the 7th place bagging Rs 34,000.
Vidwath gained a huge chip stack eliminating Rakesh Sharma and Uday Patil in the same hand. Vidwath scooped the 3-way pot with his Jacks which held higher against Rakesh’s and Patil’s . The game was down to heads-up between the monster stack Vidwath and Samir Gilani. It took only one hand to crown Vidwath Shetty the champion of the night. He went all-in with and got called by Samir who held . The dealer brought on the board giving Vidwat a pair of 7.
Samir Gilani took home Rs 1.6 Lakhs in the runner-up place while Vidwath lifted the trophy with the top ptize of Rs 2.5 Lakhs.