Vikash Mantri Wins the First Edition of WPT India for $92,000
6 years ago
14 Nov
Riverboat casinos may be a relic of a golden past in the USA, but in India it was the scene of a famous victory yesterday for Mumbai’s Vikash Mantri, who took down the inaugural WPT India aboard a boat floating on a river in Goa!
The growth of the game in the sub-continent has been phenomenal and it’s no surprise that the WPT’s tentacles have finally extended into a country which hosts over 1.3billion people – an ever-increasing percentage of whom have taken to poker like ducks to water, in this case almost literally.
The Deltin Royale Casino - India’s largest offshore gaming and entertainment venue –played host to the WPT’s first visit to India, and the 527 entries to the DeepStacks event brought about a prizepool of $420,622, equivalent to 27.5million rupees, all of which ended up going to Indian players as the solitary South African casher, Rakesh Singh, quite clearly has ties to his motherland. The WPT twitter feed kept everyone updated on progress…
…and the 4-day event entered its final stages with Mantri holding the chip lead as the final table sat down for play, claiming afterwards that the card protector which every player was given was his “lucky charm” – his fellow contenders making the grave mistake of not using theirs!
The final nine fought a fast-paced battle, with serenity at the poker table not something you see too often in the West as evidenced by Anush Wadhwa’s pose in this Twitter post…
…the New Delhi man cashing for the first time at a poker tournament when he crashed out in ninth spot. Although most of the Indian players were relatively new to big events of this type, one or two may have staked a claim to Bollywood movie stardom for the future, with 7th-placed Kiran Kumar looking like the archetypal hero…
…and 5th-placed Anil Adiani looking perfect for the role as a modern villain!
It was poker not movies in Goa this time, however, and when the end came it saw Arjun Arora’s busted gutshot river bluff fail when Mantri picked it off with his flopped 2 pair and the Mumbai man had the biggest cash of his short career so far, taking down more than $90K and the title…
With such a successful start to the WPT’s involvement in India, you can be sure they’ll be back again soon – and the players will be eagerly awaiting the return.
Final Table Results
| 1 | Vikash Mantri | p6,030,000 ($92,000) |
| 2 | Arjun Arora | 3,947,000 |
| 3 | Manish Lakhotia | 2,520,000 |
| 4 | Gaurav Chuahan | 1,920,000 |
| 5 | Anil Adiani | 1,480,000 |
| 6 | Pavan Jain | 1,151,000 |
| 7 | Kiran Kumar | 932,000 |
| 8 | Sunny Vijaywari | 713,000 |
| 9 | Ajun Wadhwa | 576,000 |
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