India Poker Series or the IPS is one of the oldest tournament series in India having made its debut in April 2010. In 2010 they held tournaments every quarter while in 2011 they have extended their arms and will now be holding tournaments every alternate month starting January 2011.

The IPS is managed and organized by its Director Bharat Agarwalla who, having learned the game from his close friend Dev Saharia, has been playing Poker since the early 90s.  The country lacked players and awareness about Poker until several years back, so when Facebook revolutionized the game in India, Mr Bharat Agarwalla formed the IPS with the sole purpose of bringing the country’s poker players to play the game in a tournament on a par with the best international events. While looking for the best location for a poker tournament on a national level, Mr Bharat Agarwalla was approached by Phil Sanders, a top casino expert, who proposed that the series be held at the Casino Royale poker room in Goa. A major part in commencing the IPS was also played by Craig Wildman who has been the series’ tournament director for all the events.  

Currently the IPS has participants coming from all parts of India and most of them experience their first live poker tournament with the IPS. The India Poker Series also has a substantial number of international players and has grown tremendously in terms of numbers and popularity since its inception. When asked about the future plans of the IPS the Director commented “First and foremost, we intend to keep a low growth path as we do not want our numbers to grow fast, as the tournament halls have limited seating capacity and we would rather have a slow growth so that we follow our strategy of bringing in new players to each event. Our next plan is to make sure we retain our Rs. 5000 Rebuy and Rs. 5000 Freezeout events while we tweak the main event from a Rs. 10,000 Freezeout to a Rs. 15,000 or Rs. 20,000 Freezeout. Our motto is that “We have the best hand” and we hope to maintain that”.

For more information on the IPS go to www.indiapokerseries.com