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Bunty Batra wins June’s Millionaire for INR 25 lakh

Poker players are always excited for high guarantee events, both live and online. Similarly, when Indian poker players think of some of the biggest online tournaments in the country, they have to think of The Millionaire – a monthly tournament which has been hosted by The Spartan Poker since 2016.

June’s Millionaire was the 21st edition of the tournament and the mega INR 1 crore guaranteed prize pool attracted a field of 646 unique players and a total of 1,224 entries. The tournament kicked off at 4:30 pm yesterday and after nearly 12 hours of grinding (ended at 3:43 am the next morning), it was Bunty Batra who ended victorious, walking away with the massive top prize of INR 25 lakh.

Playing under the username ‘hitesh bhai’, Batra has won an IOPC (India Online Poker Championship) event in the past, but this was a huge win for the poker player. 120 players were paid out a minimum cash prize of INR 20,000 and Batra took home the biggest prize of them all. “I announced my victory to my wife and mom at 6:00 in the morning. Mom was literally jumping with joy and my wife’s expression was OH GOD, here we go again,” Batra told Gutshot about his family’s reaction after announcing his win. 

The Millionaire was an INR 7,700 buy-in tournament, and Batra faced off against ‘kaos’ in heads up. In what would become the final hand of the night, Batra went all-in pre-flop holding 10-9, while kaos decided to call his bet, with 9-Q. The board opened 3-T-K-4-2 giving Batra a 10-pair, the pot and the tournament as well. The tournament ended at Level #62, with blinds running 225,000/450,000 – 60,000.

Based in Mumbai, Batra did his bachelors degree in Australia and was introduced to the game there, but his craze for poker began in Mumbai itself around 4-5 years back. We asked Batra about the experience of winning the tournament. He said, “Winning The Millionaire is every Indian poker player’s dream. It’s the biggest guaranteed tournament and the softest field. Words are less to describe how I feel as I shipped two majors in one night, both being my biggest online cash in one day itself.”

A few more questions from our interview with Batra:

Who was your toughest competition in the tournament? Explain some key hands.

Toughest competition of course was ‘kaos’. Our heads up battle went on for around 1.5 hours. He’s known to be a heads up specialist and it was definitely exhausting and the longesssssst heads up I have played. A key hand on the final table would definitely be when I flatted AAs on UTG open hoping one of the agro players would shove from behind as it creates a lot of value. Kartik had just lost a pot in the previous hand and he shoved while UTG also reshoved and it held 3way for a pot of 8 million chips. Good time, good spot and it holds. BOOM! 

Any future plans in live or online poker?

Well I’m travelling to Europe in a month so a free roll trip is always an icing on the cake. I’ll be playing the PokerStars Festival in Lille France while I’m there. Hoping for some good runs there.

What do you love most about tournaments on The Spartan Poker? 

The owners management promotions is what keeps the players coming back to The Spartan Poker and of course, the guaranteed tournaments. Kudos to Spartan as it plays a major role in the booming poker industry of India.

For all updates on big poker wins from around the country, keep following GutshotMagazine.com.

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