Ashish Ahuja has been in tremendous form, especially over the last few months. He has been winning plenty of online poker tournaments across all major Indian platforms. Adda52 is one place in particular where he has been making quite a few deep runs. While he has cashed almost all key tournaments, his run in Godfather has been highly impressive. He has cashed this event several times and has also come close to winning it a couple of times. Yesterday turned out to be a big day for him as he finally shipped the tournament for INR 5,32,875, his best score on Adda52. Along with the top prize, he also won an entry into a 9 Lac Vegas Package SNG to be played on 3rd March 2019.
On his way to victory in the 20 Lac GTD Godfather 7.0, Ahuja aka ‘rocky3705’ beat a strong final table that had the likes of Abhishek Garg aka ‘thegrinder’ (3rd for INR 2,17,500) and Sumit Sapra aka ‘Hammer_Head’ who exited in 6th place, taking home INR 76,125. In heads-up, Ahuja faced Andrea Fernandes aka‘Andrea17’ who played well but couldn’t go all the way, eventually ending as runner-up for INR 3,15,375. On the last hand, Ahuja made ‘Three of A Kind’ with his 10s Qc to win the tournament. It was his first win of the year 2019 on Adda52 and he is very happy about it.
Top 49 places were paid out in this INR 5,500 buy-in event with a min-cash of INR 11,963. Some notables to cash were ‘anishpatra’ (14th for INR 21,750), Siddharth Karia aka ‘skaria1’ (15th for INR 21,750), Siddarth Singhvi aka ‘badtameez_donk’ (16th for INR 18,488), Sahil Mahboobani aka ‘ImHighIshove’ (21st for INR 16,313), Sriharsha Doddapaneni aka ‘Ivey2’ (29th for INR 14,138), Adda52 Pro ‘KunalPatni’ (30th for INR 14,138) and Romit Advani aka ‘ft83’ (35th for INR 11,963).
Post his Godfather 7.0 win, we got in touch with the winner Ashish Ahuja to know about his win, journey, future plans and much more. Here are the excerpts of the online chat we had with him:
OPN: Congratulations on winning Godfather 7.0! How does it feel to finally ship this tourney?
Ahuja: It’s feels amazing to finally win it. I’ve been trying to win this event since long. I came close to winning it couple of times but I guess it was destined for this moment.
OPN: Tell us a little about yourself. What about your poker story- where did it begin?
Ahuja: Well, I first played poker around 7 years back at a friend’s place and I’ve been hooked to it ever since. Gradually, my passion for poker became so much that I decided quit law and take poker professionally. I’ve been playing poker professionally for almost 3 years now. Lately, I joined AceJack (now known as ‘PokerGuru Staking’) about 8 months back where my coach Aditya Agarwal aka ‘intervention’ has helped me to improve my game, which has changed my game drastically. I owe big time to my coach/mentor for all the efforts he has put in for me to become a better player.
OPN: Coming back to Godfather 7.0, tell us what propelled you to the top in this tournament?
Ahuja: I started the FT as the shortest stack and it feels amazing to ship it from that spot. I ran pretty good throughout. I got my first double up with AA against Sumit Sapra’s A9o. Then, I picked up QQ. UTG opened, button flatted, Sumit Sapra also flatted from SB and I 3-bet from BB. UTG and button folded and Sapra jammed with KQ and I busted him in that hand. I got lucky when 3 people were left. I was the shortest. Button opened and I jammed for my last 20BB with AJ and Abhishek Garg re-jamed from SB with QQ. I got lucky and hit A on the flop. Heads up, I started as CL but bluffed my entire stack in a hand where my opponent opened and I defended with 79cc. The flop came Jh 5c 5h and it went check/check. Turn is 4c, I lead for 2/3rd pot and he calls. River is Js and I bet over pot and he hero-calls me with A high. I was crippled to 5:1 deficit. But I didn’t give up there and won it from that spot.
OPN: You have won the Godfather tournament now and are also attending the DPT in February, what will be your strategy to transition from Online to Live competitive tournament environment?
Ahuja: Well, I’m well acquainted with the live poker. I started my journey as a live cash player only. I’ve had fair share of exposure to live format as well and I’m very much prepared for it. In live poker, it’s very necessary for you to focus on how everyone is playing as you don’t have any notes on players as such. You get to keep an eye on how a certain player is behaving and need to pick on live tells, which you usually don’t face while playing online.