The 8th-anniversary celebration of PokerBaazi – India’s biggest poker platform, saw another high point as the winners of India’s largest standalone poker tournament called Greatest of All Tournaments (G.O.A.T), emerged on Monday.
G.O.A.T, which kicked off on October 30, 2022, with the qualifier tournaments, finally culminated on November 7, 2022, and registered a huge total of 7196 entries. Competing for a record prize pool of INR 7.2 Cr., Kumar Chandra Rohit – Associate Director in Data Sciences with Walmart, hailing from Patna, claimed the first position and prize money of INR 94,69,000. Puneet Sachan and Anmol Mehta clinched the second and third spots, both being popular names in the poker fraternity and hailing from the capital – Delhi. While the former took home prize money of INR 68,73,418, the latter won INR 31,51,848 to complete the places on the podium.
Commenting on the occasion, Navkiran Singh, Founder and CEO Baazi Games, said, “With each major tournament, the quality of players and competition is improving, and there are no clear favorites despite big names in the pool. I would like to congratulate all the winners on their achievement and participants who helped the tournament reach its scale.”
He further added, “The record-setting numbers of G.O.A.T have only strengthened our belief that we are moving in the right direction of establishing poker as a sport and will see many Poker GOATs emerging from India in this global sport in the years to come.”
Kumar Chandra Rohit (aka CK) was overjoyed with his performance and said, “Poker is a true game of strategy and skill. While I have played poker for a long time, I never thought I would be at the top in India’s largest poker tournament by defeating very skilled opponents and some star names from the Indian poker circuit. Poker’s popularity is growing, and the landscape is evolving; with more tournaments such as G.O.A.T, we will see the general shift in perception of luck vs. skill happening faster. It is truly one of the biggest days in my poker career, and I would like to congratulate my fellow winners on their achievement.”
Apart from the top three, a host of other winners made a mark for themselves. The fourth position was grabbed by Avish Sharma (Jammu), who won INR 27,12,892; Shashank Shekhar (Mumbai) won INR 23,02,720; and Vishal Kumar (Delhi) won INR 19,42,920, who stood fifth and sixth respectively. The last four positions of the top 10 were clinched by – Vinayak Bajaj (Mumbai), who won INR 16,19,100, Anish Grover (Delhi), who won INR 13,24,064, Arman Rahul Baldota (Pune), who won 10,00,244 and Vaibhav Tamani (Jaipur), winning prize money of INR 6,83,620.