Baazi Poker Tour: Bharat Kumar takes Main Event title; Rohit Jinwal wins High Roller

The Baazi Poker Tour (BPT) has brought a wealth of action and interest to its series in the last week, with the two biggest events having rounded off the series in style.

Floating casino “Pride II” in Goa has been hosting the events, which have attracted some of India’s finest poker talents.

₹50,000 Main Event – Winner: Bharat Kumar

The most coveted title on the BPT schedule is undoubtedly the Main Event. With its ₹50,000 (US$700) buy-in, the Main Event drew in a crowd of 567 players, each hoping to walk away with the top prize of just over 38 lakhs (US$53,225). Despite the good-sized field, some of India’s brightest stars made deep runs, with Dhaval Mudgal and Abhinav Iyer making it to the final table.

Unfortunately for the fans, Iyer could not make any progress at the final table and was the first to hit the rail in 9th place. Mudgal however, was able to put together a much better run, navigating his way to the final four players where an ICM deal for the money was negotiated. Vinod Megalmani then fell in 4th place, followed soon after by Mudgal in 3rd.

This left Tarun Guwalani and Bharat Kumar to battle it out for the trophy, with Kumar enjoying a near 2 to 1 chip advantage at the start of play. The tide soon shifted against Kumar though, with Guwalani wrestling the chiplead away from him and extending into a 2 to 1 chiplead of his own. Kumar would not be swatted aside so easily however, and came surging back, regaining control of the match and putting his opponent on the ropes. Soon after, he managed to get the job done when Guwalani’s hopeful shove with walked straight into the jaws of Kumar’s .

The final table payouts are as follows:

1st – Bharat Kumar – ₹38,01,000* (US$53,225)

2nd – Tarun Guwalani – ₹36,22,000*

3rd – Dhaval Mudgal – ₹28,33,000*

4th – Vinod Megalmani – ₹26,55,000*

5th – Chirag Sodha – ₹12,28,500

6th – Hitesh Batra – ₹10,39,300

7th – Maria Kirloskar – ₹8,66,100

8th – Neel Joshi – ₹6,90,200

9th – Abhinav Iyer – ₹5,19,700

₹100,000 High Roller – Winner: Rohit Jinwal

The High Roller event took place across two days, attracting special interest as players contested what seemed certain to be the biggest prize pool of the series. The tournament commanded a buy-in of ₹100,000 (US$1,400), with 161 players taking up the gauntlet and staking their claim to the title. This generated a total prize pool of ₹1.52 Crores (US$212,862) with 18 players set to make it to the money.

By the time the field had been boiled down to its final 8 survivors, Ankit Wadhawan led the way with a comfortable chip stack of almost 3 million. This placed him firmly in the driving seat, with more than double his nearest challenger. Abhinav Iyer, who would also final table the Main Event, was among the finalists in this event too, but had work to do, bringing in one of the shorter stacks.

Iyer fared a little better in this event than he did in the High Roller, eventually busting in 6th place, with Sajjan Barnwal following him to the rail soon after in 5th place. Rohit Jinwal kept himself very busy during the final table, steadily climbing up the counts. He was unable to match Wadhawan however, who also strengthened his position throughout the final table. In the end, it was Jinwal and Wadhawan who were left to fight it out, with Vivek Rughani and Siddarth Karia falling away on 4th and 3rd place respectively.

Wadhawan began heads-up play with a 2 to 1 chiplead, but a see-saw series of pots helped the chiplead to swing back and forth between the two contenders. Eventually, with the help of pocket aces against ace-queen, Jinwal managed to seize a sizeable chiplead and then looked assured in finishing the job to claim the tile.

The action in India continues at a fast pace with WPT India having kicked off on

The final table payouts are as follows:

1st – Rohit Jinwal – ₹39,38,600 (US$)

2nd – Ankit Wadhawan – ₹27,57,700

3rd – Siddharth Karia – ₹17,74,200

4th – Vivek Rughani – ₹13,13,800

5th – Sajjan Barnwal – ₹9,85,000

6th – Abhinav Iyer – ₹7,87,700

7th – Jeeran Jain – ₹6,54,600

8th – Nikhil Jain – ₹5,24,600

Other Highlights

₹15K Kick-Off

Entries: 257

Winner: Abhijeet Shetty – ₹8.53 Lakhs (US$)

₹20K Big Bounty

Entries: 220

Winner: Gokul Krishna – ₹5.16 Lakhs (US$)

₹20K PLO

Entries: 156

Winner: Rohan Dhawan – ₹7.55 Lakhs (US$)

Article by Craig Bradshaw