Kunal Patni on Winning The PLO Event at DPT: ‘I Wanted This Probably as Bad as Anybody Could Want a Trophy!’

Kunal Patni
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  • PG News November 26, 2016
  • 4 Minutes Read

The only thing more frustrating for a poker player than hunting a first title is claiming a second one, after having debuted with a big win! Ask any winning pro and they will relate the angst of waiting for a second title; the lack of which is like having to prove oneself all over again.That is exactly what Kunal Patni (cover image) faced and recently came through with a title at the series ending side event at DPT!

The 37-year old banker-turned pro arrived in the poker arena with a bang, having won a Spadie at his very first international outing, the Asia Pacific Poker Tournament (APPT) Macau 2014 NLH Rebuy Championship for HKD 176,200. Subsequently, Patni made a series of impressive cashes at various tournaments, with as many as 12 final tables, including a runner-up finish at the 2015 Asian Poker Tour (APT) Manila NLH Freezeout for ₱150,300.

Despite that it was a trying time for Patni, with the BIG win eluding him! Not one to give up, he persevered and that dedication finally paid off, when he won the 15K 6-Max PLO event at the Deltin Poker Tournament, Nov edition for ₹2,52,300.

Patni has had a long journey, quite different from the usual young poker players, but the passion and dedication is much the same, in fact stronger in him. Here, he tells us about that journey, the start, the initial euphoria at winning the Spadie, the pros who inspired him, his becoming an Adda52 pro member and much more…

 

Hi Kunal thanks for taking the time to talk to us! Do tell us a little about yourself.

I am turning 37 this week and was born in Nagaland, where my dad had his business. So I spent the initial 10 years there and then moved to Kolkata for the major part of my schooling and college. I then moved to Delhi for two years and completed my MBA at IIFT. Post that, I moved to Mumbai in 2003 and have been living there since. In between for two years, I was in Dubai due to a job transfer.

As part of the financial service sector, I worked with management companies for 11-12 years. I started my career with Birla Life Insurance, moved on to Anand Rathi for four years and my last job was with IFL Wealth Management. I gave it up last year in April to concentrate on playing poker professionally.

 

How and when did you come across the sport of poker? Please take us through the journey.

Like most Indian players I discovered poker through Zynga poker on FaceBook and we obviously knew about Teen Patti as everyone in India used to play it. I got hooked on to poker a little bit and then once I joined my last company i.e. IFL, my boss was a big fan of poker and he used to have weekly poker home games, that’s when I started playing poker more regularly and then one tournament happened in Goa sometime in June 2014. I went for it and ended up chopping the tournament for the first place and that`s when the poker bug really bit me.

I began looking out for more opportunities and tournaments to play in India but because of the TDS issue, there weren’t much tournaments happening in India. I googled about tournaments and came to know about Asian Championship of Poker (ACOP) in Macau. I took a leave from office for two weeks and decided to play a few tournaments and enjoy the experience. As luck would have it, I shipped the first event the Spadie, but didn’t realize how big it was until I started getting interview calls from PokerGuru and OPN.

I got some 60-70 friend requests on FaceBook in just two days. That’s when I realized that it’s really big and no one has ever won two Spadie events till date. I had a bit of a dream run in the series having shipped the Spadie, I immediately registered for the second tournament and had a deep run in that coming 13th. In the fourth event I final tabled again coming very-very close to making history and getting the second Spadie title but took fourth place. I played the High Roller satty and won that for a chance to play alongside pros like Phil Ivey and Elky in the event.

It was quite a journey and in 2014 October I came back to India. Adda52 was forming its team of Pro’s in Jan 2015 and they approached me to be a part of it, I loved the idea of being in the same team with players like Aditya Sushant, Amit Jain, Muskan Sethi and took that offer. I then realized that if I want to focus on poker I can’t do both – job and poker; so I decided to gave up my job in March to pursue poker professionally.

 

You entered the poker circuit with a bang taking down the ACOP Spadie event and this is your second trophy win after that. How would you describe the importance of shipping an event? And how much did you want this subconsciously?

I wanted this probably as bad as anybody could want a trophy! Post the Spadie trophy in 2014, I was fortunate enough to make about 19 final tables including final table in DPT tournament. Thanks to God, I have had a great run in the Asian Circuit especially in Macau and Manila. I made a lot of final tables and probably finished in all the spots and was itching bad to get one trophy after my Spadie win.

Atleast two to three times I lost out on the title heads up and even on hands where I was ahead on the flop and I would get unlucky on the river, so it hurt quite a bit and it was getting frustrating for me. It’s not easy to get 19 final tables in a span of year and half, but not being able to go all the way and get a trophy was worse. Thankfully I did win the PLO event at DPT and got the trophy.

 

You have been an active and renowned face of the circuit for so long, what are your views on the current scenario of poker in the country?

I think Poker in India is destined for a big boom now, I have been playing events in India and Asian region and the number of Indian players playing these events and doing well is amazing. If you see the record over one and a half years, for a small contingent of players going for Macau and Manila, they are doing exceedingly well. I remember once in Macau, there were only 11 players from India out of a field of 800-900 people and there was an Indian player who made final table in all events in the series.

Indians understand the game so well and this just proves that. It had been a similar in Manila and even in WSOP. We are very close and it’s high time an Indian will win a big title or bracelet or WPT event or something, which will improve things even more. It’s definitely looking like a big boom is just around the corner and we have some great players who know their game.

 

You travel throughout the globe for your poker endeavors but where do you prefer playing live? Is it just tournaments or also cash games?

Unfortunately when I travel for poker I don’t get time to play much cash (games) but given a choice I will love to play cash games in Vegas, it’s by far the softest field to play cash games and definitely Vegas again when it comes to tournaments, because it is the Mecca of Poker and you have the biggest fields, the biggest prize pools and the whole environment during the World Series is crazy. You have a lot of simultaneous events going on and that’s one great place to play poker.

Unfortunately for me I have played two WSOPs till date but both of them weren’t very successful trips for me as I had scores in other events, but ran pretty dry at WSOP. When it comes to personal scores, I love playing in Macau and Manila and they are my favorite places as I have made the maximum number of final tables there. I love playing in Macau due to their field sizes, though I don’t prefer their tournament structures. APT structures are way better, but unfortunately we don’t get that many players and value for regulars. I have been lucky enough to go for WPT China and Nottingham and again I am travelling for WPT Prague and WPT France in two week’s time so that again should be a great experience.

 

What major differences did you find in playing/competing in different venues and countries?

The field size is obviously different depending on where you playing and again the type of players participating are different in each series. For e.g. in Manila even though the number of players is not that much, but it is one of the toughest fields to compete at, as some of the best players from Asia are there for the series.

PokerStars events in Macau are slightly easier. Vegas again, it’s a god mix of tough and soft tables, so it all depends on which venue or series you are competing at. Even in India as I said, a lot of players know their game well, so I would rather play with fields in Macau/Manila not because they are not Indians, but I respect the game we play.

 

What do you do to improve your game?

Very frankly, I am not the conventional poker player; I never really learnt the game. Initially as I had very little experience, I had just read three books by Jonathan Little while travelling for ACOP. I never studied the game or got deeply involved, but lately I realized that there is much more to grasp and learn as we move ahead in poker and hence, I try doing all things to improve my game, whether it’s reading books/articles/watching videos. Most importantly I discuss a lot with my fellow poker players, who travel to Macau/Manila; it’s always a good idea to bounce off your views and take suggestions on how one should play in the particular circumstance/hand.

One of the players I look up to is Amit Jain; I think he really knows how to adjust his game whether in cash/tourneys or online MTT’s. Then Danish Shaikh is another such player. I was fortunate enough to share a room with him in one of the Macau trips and his ability of explaining situations in a hand and how one should play in a particular scenario is beyond amazing. I think he will be a great coach. Raghav Bansal is another player whose game I enjoy a lot though he plays a very different game, than how I play. I am more of a tight aggressive and he is more of a loose aggressive. His understanding of the game and again explaining situations is phenomenal. Then our regular pro’s like Jasven Saigal, Shravan Chhabria, Akash Malik, Kanishka Samant, all have a great game and are doing exceedingly well and I have no qualms in going to them and discussing any hand.

 

What are your plans for future? Any set goals?

Every player has some goal of winning a big event or making a big score and its been eluding me since two years in spite of so many final tables and deep runs. But I am hoping that the last PLO trophy brings some good luck to me and in 2017 I manage to ship something big. Another goal is that I want to start playing online more.

 

Any parting words or anything you would like to add?

It’s ironic that a PLO fish shipped a PLO event and that too after making 19 final tables in Hold’em. (Ha ha ha). Maybe this is what was needed to open the floodgates for lots of trophies in the coming future.

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