Team India is off to a great start at the 2020 Red Dragon Manila with Indian pro Sahil Agarwal winning the series opener – Red Dragon Kickoff, a 2-day event that featured a PHP 20,000 buy-in and attracted a total of 394 entries to generate a massive PHP 6,879,240 in prizepool. While top 48 finishers shared the prizepool with a min-cash of PHP 32,500, the lion’s share went to Sahil Agarwal who eventually defeated Uzbekistan’s Valeriy Pak in heads-up to earn PHP 1,575,000 (~INR 22.21 Lac) in the first-place prize. Pak settled for PHP 990,000 for his runner-up finish in the event.
Manila seems to be Sahil’s favourite place to play poker in Asia as he has been actively participating and doing well in tournaments happening here. It is the same city where he scored his best live cash of $87,647 after finishing runner-up in the ₱ 184,000 + 16,000 NLH High Roller Shot Clock & BB Ante at the APPT Manila (August 2018). Sahil has come close to winning a title here several times and he eventually got the monkey off his back by winning Red Dragon Kickoff to earn first live title in this city.
Sahil began the final table with 1.435M, just 10K behind from chip leader Quang Minh Nguyen’s 1.445M. The latter could not hold on to his chis advantage and was eliminated in third place by Sahil, who eventually entered the heads-up with a 2-to-1 chip advantage over Varleriy Pak, a notable player who is known more for winning the WPT Korea Main Event in 2018. Sahil continued his domination and eventually went on to win the opening tournament to kick-start his 2020 journey in style.
Final Table Payouts
- Sahil Agarwal – ₱1,575,000 (US$30,805)
- Valeriy Pak – ₱990,000
- Quang Minh Nguyen – ₱614,000
- Xiangzhi Chen – ₱483,000
- Yakai Li – ₱355,000
- Zuoxian Wang – ₱285,000
- Leonard Aban – ₱223,000
- Yuwen Pan – ₱188,000
- Jinho Hong – ₱157,000