Since September 11th, Big Daddy Casino in Goa has been busy hosting the India Poker Championship (IPC). The tournament series has returned after a 3 year break. Instagram star Dan Bilzerian has been in attendance, with dozens of great players all looking to land an IPC title. With the record-breaking Main Event now concluded, we can bring you the final IPC update from India.
INR 35,000 Main Event – Winner: Raj Talwar
The IPC Main Event commanded a buy in of INR 35,000 ( US$489.09), and organisers were hoping to see a field that would match the 697 who turned out for WPT India’s Main Event last year. That mark was surpassed comfortably in the end, with 777 runners contributing to a prize pool which ballooned to 2.65 crores (US$370,311). The field size set record for any Main Event ever held in India and set the stage for a fascinating IPC finale. There were two day 1 starting flights for the event, with the field having been cut down to just 159 by the start of day 2. Another 12 hours of play was needed to separate the champion from the contenders, with Raj Talwar claiming the title.
Dhaval Mudgal also created one of the more compelling stories of the series, with the former WPT Vietnam winner taking 3rd place here after a 5th place in the High Roller, but the Main Event title was Talwar’s. The victory marks his first major title, coming after he defeated Ayush Garg heads up. Garg had gone from having the lead coming into the final table to a short stack heads up when he shoved his remaining chips in with 
only for Talwar to call with 
. The board ran out clean and Talwar took the title.
Here are the final payouts:
1st – Raj Talwar (India) – INR 45,25,775 (US$19,917)
2nd – Ayush Garg (India) – INR 34,53,900
3rd – Dhaval Mudgal (India) – INR 22,27,100
4th – Sanket Arora (India) INR 16,31,300
5th – Sam Anand (India) INR 12,46,900
6th – Ashish Ahuja (India) INR 9,95,100
7th – Dinesh Singh (India) INR 8,24,200
8th – Pulkit Goyal (India) INR 6,56,000
9th – Haresh Kukreja (India) INR 4,92,600
INR 100,000 High Roller – Winner: Pranay Chawla
The High Roller of this year’s IPC had a buy in of INR 100,000 (US$1,397.70), with 207 players paying the entry fee. This created a prize pool of 2.3 crore (US$321,471), which is the biggest prize pool for any High Roller tournament staged in India. 24 players would go on to get paid in this 2-day event.
In the latter stages of the tournament there were still a few familiar names in contention, with 70 players having survived the first day. Nikita Luther was eliminated in 40th, while Dhaval Mudgal was still in with a chance as Gokul Raj hit the rail on the bubble in 24th. Mudgal remained a threat throughout the rest of the tournament, making the final table and eventually busting in 5th.
It wasn’t long before a few more dreams had been dashed and the action was heads up. Pranay Chawla started off with the lead, bringing a 19 million stack to Nitish Gupta’s 12 million. Gupta wasted no time in levelling the playing field, winning two big pots early on.
Chawla wasn’t going to sit meekly and allow his opponent the upper hand however, and he soon struck back, regaining the lead before running extremely good when all-in with 
against Gupta’s 
. Chawla caught a full house to end he match, claiming the win and the top prize.
Here are the final table payouts:
1st – Pranay Chawla (India) – INR 51,66,000 (US$72,174)
2nd – Nitish Gupta (India) – INR 35,24,500
3rd – Vaibhav Sharmer (India) – INR 20,89,900
4th – Ankit Wadhawan (India) – INR 12,71,300
5th – Dhaval Mudgal (India) – INR 9,81,800
6th – Gaurav Kathuria – INR 8,13,500
7th – Vikram Kumar – INR 6,93,200
Article by Craig Bradshaw
