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Ashish Ahuja crowned BPT 10k Kick Off winner

We all knew it was going to be a fun outing for players at the Baazi Poker Tour (BPT) on board the Casino Pride 2, but who would’ve expected such a great start to the series?! Yesterday, a record BPT Kick Off field of 286 entries registered from which only 32 places were paid and 13 of them managed to get a bag and progress to Day 2 of the tournament.

Sriharsha Doddapaneni was the chip leader among these 13 and he had a massive stack at the start of the day. The day resumed at 2pm today and eliminations were quick. Zook Kurup (9th) and Anuj Yadav (10th) busted out simultaneously on separate tables which meant that the final table of 8 players was set and Sriharsha D was still in the lead with 915,000 chips, closely followed by Ashish Ahuja with 730,000 chips.

The FT also saw quite a few quick eliminations with Phanindra Akkina heading out in 8th place (INR 79,300), Vikas KN in 7th place (INR 98,900), Nishant Sharma in 6th place (INR 1,19,100) and Chirag Sodha soon following in 5th place (INR 1,48,400). Vaibhav Shah and Bikash Rai soon followed in 4th and 3rd place respectively. 

Sriharsha and Ashish Ahuja were easily among the best players on the table and it was no surprise that these two landed up against each other in heads-up. Sriharsha made good use of his chip stack and kept putting the pressure which saw Ahuja mostly defending early in heads-up. However, it wasn’t going to be one-sided with two extremely talented players facing off in heads-up.

In one vital hand, Ashish Ahuja opened to 80k with pocket Sevens and Sriharsha 3-bet 290k with AT suited. Ahuja shoved and got a call, and both got no help from the board. Ahuja’s Sevens stood and he took the chip lead with 3 million chips against Sriharsha’s 1.3 million. From there, it was Ahuja’s time to turn on the pressure! A few minutes later, he won and added INR 6,18,200 to his poker bankroll. The final hand was another PFAI situation which you can see here:

Both of them are highly accomplished players with several online and live titles in India, and live cashes across the world as well. It was just a couple of months back that Sriharsha was victorious in Goa, winning the 25k Big Bounty tournament at WPT India 2019. A good heads-up battle was guaranteed, and we weren’t disappointed. Eventually, Sriharsha had to settle for INR 4,16,700 for the runner-up position.

Final table payouts:

1. Ashish Ahuja – 6,18,200
2. Sriharsha D – INR 4,16,700
3. Bikram Rai – INR 2,68,000
4. Vaibhav Shah – INR 1,94,900
5. Chirag Sodha – INR 1,48,400
6. Nishant Sharma – INR 1,19,100
7. Vikas KN – INR 98,900
8. Phanindra Akkina – INR 79,300

The 15k Bounty tournament also kicked off today and you can stay tuned to GutshotMagazine.com for all updates from the ongoing Baazi Poker Tour (BPT) in Goa.

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Image courtesy: PokerBaazi

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