The much-awaited India Poker Championship (IPC) got off to a thundering start at the Big Daddy casino in Goa with its opening event – the 10K Kick Off registering an impressive turnout with 315 entries to crush its guarantee and take the prizepool to a whopping INR 30.55 Lac, which was shared by top 37 finishers with a min-cash of INR 18,900. The loin’s share of the prizepool went to Bengaluru-based Vinod Megalmani who eventually defeated defending champion Siddharth Mundada in HU to win INR 6.73 Lac prize.
Megalmani,who has been playing poker for over five years, has plenty of live cashes to his name. Although the talented player has already scored more than a half dozen of FT finishes, it was his second live title. His first win had come when he won the 2019 Melbourne Crown Casino Recurring Tournaments A$150 Monday MegaStack last year. Last night, he added the second title to his live poker resume by winning the 10K Kickoff of the ongoing IPC to add a good INR 6.73 Lac to his growing poker bankroll.
This Kick-off event had begun on 15th January, and by the end of 1st Day’s play, there were only 22 survivors with Aditya Kesharwani leading them. The bubble burst on Day 1 itself with Atul Jaiswal going out in 38th Place. Vinod Hegde (37th for INR 18,900) became the first ITM finisher and some of the notables to follow him were the likes of Zarvan Tumboli (24th for INR 26,600), Adda52 Team Pro Kunal Patni (25th for INR 23,500), Wilson Yomso (28th for INR 20,700),and Haider Madraswala (30th for INR 20,700),
Day 2 of the event kicked off at 3pm on 16th January and eliminations were quick. Manveer Singh (17th for INR 40,300), Gaurav Sood (21st for INR 33,000) and Pradeep Pathak (22nd for INR 26,600) and two women players Aishwarya Khurana (16th for INR 40,300) and Deepanshi Tomar (12th for INR 57,000) who remained last woman standing to win ‘Last Woman Standing’ contest) were some of the eliminations.
Eliminations continued and the final table was eventually reached after Rachit Pathak hit the rail in 10th place for INR 57,000. The final table was set with the start-of-day chip leader Kesharwani (12,10,000) still in lead and much ahead of Mundada (2nd – 760,000 chips) and Megalmani (3rd– 665,000 chips).
At the final table, it was Megalmani who dominated. He started off well by eliminating Akash Shekha (9th) and then went on to bust Ashwani Atrish (7th), Vikram Mishra (4th) and Patrick Liang (3rd) to eventually reach heads-up with a commanding chip lead over Siddharth Mundada who fought well but eventually finished runner-up for INR 4,73,600. The final hand of the event saw Mundada with A-10 and Megalmani with A-K. The board ran 6-5-8-2-K, giving the latter the coveted pot as well as the title.
Final Table (INR):
- Vinod Megalmani – INR 6,73,600
- Siddharth Mundada – INR 4,73,600
- Patrick Liang – INR 3,04,600
- Vikram Mishra – INR 1,90,200
- Ankit Bhansali – INR 1,46,800
- Aditya Kesharwani – INR 1,21,600
- Ashwani Atrish – INR 1,02,200
- Nimit Patel – INR 84,000
- Akash Shekhar – INR 67,300