WPT India: Rajnish Kumar Ships High Roller For ₹36.38 Lakhs; Rakesh Singh Tops Main Event Day 1A

Rajnish Kumar
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  • PG News November 11, 2017
  • 8 mins Read

The ₹100K High Roller at the ongoing World Poker Tour (WPT) India attracted an impressive 148 runners. The freezeout event played out across two days with Patna’s Rajnish Kumar (cover image) emerging victorious.

Kumar is well known in the high stakes circuit and had even won the Deltin Poker Tournament (DPT) High Roller in July this year. Kumar is primarily a high stakes cash game player who travels across the country playing in some of the biggest games. It is no surprise that Kumar was signed on by Match IPL Team Jaipur Jewels as team mentor.

Kumar defeated Rajesh Rajpopat heads-up to clinch the title along with the ₹36.38 lakhs top prize.

In a repeat of the SuperStack event where eventual champion Sandeep Tulsyan emerged from the bottom of the chip counts on the final table to overcome what seemed like an insurmountable chip lead, Kumar too made him way to the podium in similar fashion.

Running alongside Day 2 of the High Roller was also the first starting flight (Day 1A) of the ₹55K Main Event. Day 1A of the grand event attracted a strong field of 244 runners and at the end of the day only 56 remain with Rakesh Singh bagging the largest stack of 376,000. Other big stacks include Anuj Wadhwa (248,500), Harshil Dhingura (211,500), Jujhar Kochar (189,500), Rahul Melwani (181,000) and Sunny Vijay (166,000).

WPT CEO Adam Paliska who was present yesterday at the poker room spoke to OPN about the inaugural WPT India and said, “We are extremely proud to partner with Adda52.com to bring the World Poker Tour to India for the first time in 16-year history.”

 

100K High Roller

The high buy-in event attracted some of the best poker players in the country including Adda52 Team Pros Kunal Patni, Amit Jain, Nikita Luther and Tarun Goyal, Adda52 Celebrity Pro Minissha Lamba, Mayank Agarwal, Eka Vedantham, Dhaval Mudgal, Sumit Sapra, Shravan Chhabria, Muskan Sethi, Nishant Sharma, Anil Gulati, Daniel Weinman and the list goes on.

Many notables hit the rails on the opening day itself and the list of eliminations featured Sahil Chutani, Vinod Megalmani, Ashwat V, Sriharsha Doddapaneni, Amit Tejura, Ronak Vyas, Haresh Kukreja, Akshay Nasa, Kunal Patni and Shreyas Voodari.

It took 14 levels of play for the 148-player field to be trimmed down to 41 survivors who came back on Saturday to play down to a champion.

Leading the pack at the end of Day 1 was Bharat Janardhan who managed to bag 403,500 in chips. Other notables who survived included big guns like Sumit Sapra (304,600), Sahil Agarwal (133,300), Meherzad Munsaf (102,200), Amit Jain (70,500), Bryan Huang (51,700) and Muskan Sethi (43,400).

 

Day 2

As has been the trend this series, the action was fast and furious on Day 2 with players falling in quick succession. Among those who went out early were Hemant Maloo, Arshit Jalan, Keshav Chadha, Muskan Sethi, Sushmit Patodiya, Pawan Jain, Mihir Mehta, Nishant Sharma, Amit Jain, Bryan Huang, Jeeran Jain, Aditya G and Amjad Pasha.

The money bubble tag fell on PokerBaazi pro Vikram Kumar who was sent packing by another well-known player Sumit Sapra. On his final hand of the tournament, Kumar shoved holding pocket sixes and Sapra called tabling Ax 10x. The board fanned out Kx 10x 10x Qx 3x and Kumar lost the crucial flip to hit the rails at 16th place.

While the action had somewhat stagnated near the money bubble, Kumar`s elimination definitely helped as the action picked up adequate pace.

The list of players who missed their chance of making it to the final table included Varun Iyer (11th place), Yudhishter Jaswal (12th place), Meherzad Munsaf (13th place), Vinay Deshlahra (14th place) and Sahil Agarwal (15th place).

Bharath Janardhan bubbled the final table at 10th place after getting eliminated by Vinay SK. Janardhan shoved with pocket fives and SK woke up with pocket aces to make the easy call. As luck would have it for Janardhan, the board bricked out and we were down to the final nine players.

Final Table Chip Counts

1. Vinay SK – 958,000
2. Sumit Sapra – 616,000
3. Phanindra Akkina – 562,000
4. Vaibhav Sharma – 484,000
5. Amit Sur – 426,000
6. Sanjay Taneja – 422,000
7. Girish Sampath – 394,000
8. Rajesh Rajpopat – 382,000
9. Rajnish Kumar – 193,000

 

Final Table Recap

Sanjay Taneja was the first one out on the final table. On his final hand of the tournament, Taneja opened and got one caller in Girish Sampath. On the 5x 4x 6x flop, Sampat bet and Taneja called to see the turn 8x. Sampat fired another bullet and Taneja shoved after tanking for a while holding pocket sevens. Sampatcalled showing Kx 7x for a straight to take down the pot.

Next to fall was Vaibhav Sharma with eventual champion Rajnish Kumar doing the damage. Kumar opened and Sharma jammed with pocket eights. Kumar called tabling pocket jacks and held on to take out Sharma in eighth place.

Kumar was merciless and busted Phanindra Akkina next when the latter shoved with . Kumar called tabling and hit a one card flush on the board to take down the pot eliminating Akkina in seventh place.

Girish Sampath was going strong until Kumar finished him off too. Kumar opened, Sampat shoved with and Kumar made the call tabling Ax Jx. The board blanked out and just like that Sampat was eliminated in sixth place.

From the short stack Kumar now had a big enough stack to exert pressure and he was merciless. His next victim was Amit Sur who went out at fifth place. Kumar opened and Sur moved all-in holding . Kumar called with and hit two pairs on the board to take out another player from the final table.

Amit Sur
Amit Sur

Sumit Sapra was the next casualty and was relegated to the rails in fourth place. Action saw Sapra opening the betting, Vinay SK 3-bet and action folded back to Sapra who called. The flop came 3x 3x 3x prompting Sapra to move all-in with pocket fours for a full house. SK called tabling pocket tens for a better full house and took down the pot with the remaining two cards blanking out for Sapra.

Sumit Sapra
Sumit Sapra

Incidentally, Vinay SK was the next one out and was busted by Rajnish Kumar. The hand in question had SK opening and Kumar moved all-in with . SK called tabling and lost out on the board Ax Kx 6x 2x 3x.

Vinay Sk
Vinay SK

The heads-up battle between Kumar and Rajesh Rajpopat started with the former dominating with a huge lead and the former took down the title with ease.

Rajesh Rajpopat
Rajesh Rajpopat

The last hand of the event saw Kumar moving allin with Qx Jx and Rajpopat called with pocket nines. Kumar hit a straight on the board Kx Qx 10x Ax 10x to add another High Roller title to his resume!

Rajnish Kumar
Rajnish Kumar

Final Table Results (INR)

1. Rajnish Kumar – ₹36,38,000

2. Rajesh Rajpopat – ₹24,49,000

3. Vinay Sk – ₹14,69,000

4. Sumit Sapra – ₹11,54,000

5. Amit Sur – ₹8,75,000

6. Girish Sampath – ₹7,35,000

7. Phanindra Akkina – ₹5,95,000

8. Vaibhav Sharma – ₹5,25,000

9. Sanjay Taneja – ₹4,54,880

Image and Content Courtesy: www.onlinepokernews.in

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