Ashit Sharma wins Electra at Spartan

24-year old Ashit Sharma was born and brought up in Delhi. He started playing poker in 2013 while doing Engineering in Electronics and Communication at the popular university town of Manipal in southern India. It all began with low stakes cash games after college with many of his friends like Jaideep Sajwan, Rishab Jain, and Sharad Rao who have now turned full time pros. Sharma was working with audit and accounting firm PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) as an analyst for the past two years and so never played poker full time.

Speaking about Electra tournament, he said, “Electra, being a turbo, had very thin edges though I never took any risk till I made it into the money. And the key hand which happened was at the final table which gave me a massive chip lead. I was dealt pocket Aces in early position which saw the hand going post flop 4 ways, with 1 player already all in. The flop came down 8x 3x 8x and Sharma bet big which was called by the then chip leader. Turn was a Tx, which I bet quite big as I wanted to end the hand there, but the chip leader went all in, which I had to call off because of the pot size. The chip leader tabled 3x 3x for flopped full house but an Ax on the river gave me the nuts and a commanding chip lead!”

When asked about the poker scene, he commented, “About the online and live poker scene in the country: I think it’s looking brilliant on both fronts but the battle to recognize the game as a skill game still lies in front of us. I feel it should happen soon due to the launch of sports leagues like PSL in the country as well as various respectable people, like Vishwanathan Anand, becoming an ambassador for the game.”