The super successful series of the India Poker Championship (IPC) is in the books. The last event of the comeback series – INR 15K buy-in Head Hunter crowned a champion in Raghavendra Hada who outlasted a record 348-entry field and the well-known Arsh Grover in heads-up to earn the top prize of INR 7.39 Lac – his first recorded live score. Grover had started the final table as the chip leader with 1,100,000 chips but he had to eventually settle for INR 5,18,200 as a runner-up finisher.
The eventual champion Hada had began the FT with the third largest stack of 706,000 chips. He got off to a strong start by scoring the first elimination in Astad Randheria (10th) who ran his pocket jacks into Hada’s Aces. The next to fall was Vipul Tiwari (9th) whose pocket sevens were cracked by Abhishek Mazumder’s ace-queen. A little later, it was Meet Jariwala who exited in the 8th place.
The next elimination was scored by Arsh Grover whose pocket fives beat pocket sixes of Abhishek Mazumder (7th). Grover then scored another elimination by busting Ghanshyam Tripathi in 6th place. Tripathi had pitted his pocket queens against Grover’s KJ. The latter hit straight to win it. The next to fall was Manoj Singh (5th) whose king-ten could not hold against pocket aces of Grover.
Up next, the eventual champion Hada dominated the action. First, he eliminated Devbrat Rout (4th) whose pocket threes failed to improve against pocket tens of Hada. A little later, Hada busted Rachit Parihar (3rd) who pitted his pocket sevens against Ad 7s of Hada who found an ace on the turn to win the pot and take the chip lead of 2.87 Million chips over his heads-up mate Arsh Grover holding 2.35 Million chips. The heads-up did not last long and was quickly over with Hada winning it.
The last hand of the dual saw Hada shoving with Jc Kc and Arsh Grover called with 9c Tc. The board ran out 2h 3h Ah 7d Jd, giving Hada a pair of Jacks to win the pot as well as the coveted title.
Final Table Payouts (INR):
- Raghavendra Hada – INR 7,39,000
- Arsh Grover – INR 5,18,200
- Rachit Parihar – INR 3,33,300
- Devbrat Rout – INR 2,11,300
- Manoj Singh – INR 1,63,100
- Ghanshyam Tripathi – INR 1,35,000
- Abhishek Mazumder – INR 1,13,400
- Meet Jariwala – INR 93,200
- Vipul Tiwari – INR 73,900
- Astad Randheria – INR 62,300