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Rajesh Singh beats Kavish Kukreja to win SSS Main Event

It was not a usual day for the poker community in India yesterday. The day being a Sunday, saw some of the biggest offerings from various leading websites, but the limelight was grabbed by Spartan Poker’s SSS #42 – Main Event INR 75 Lakhs GTD.

The tournament was the biggest of this time’s Spartan Super Series (SSS) and saw a colossal playing field of 825 entries (including 169 re-entries and 257 re-buys) attract for a relatively higher buy-in of INR 11,000. All entries chipped in the amount to create INR 82.5 Lakhs in prize pool, a massive increase from the original guarantee.

The tournament lasted for over 9 and a half hours, starting at 6 pm and ending today morning at 3.46 am. Rajesh Singh aka ‘RULS’ won the tournament, earning an outstanding amount of INR 20,62,500 as the first-place cash prize. The journey for Singh must’ve been extra fulfilling as he beat a great number of pros to finish at the top and regular Kavish Kukreja aka ‘Dietchips’ in heads-up.

In the final hand of the tournament, Singh had a sizeable chip lead and was just looking to deal the final blow to Kukreja. Holding 4d Ah, Singh saw Kukreja go all-in pre-flop with pocket Sevens. The board revealed 3h Kc 8d Kd 8h and Singh managed to beat his opponent with the higher Ace kicker. Kukreja ultimately settled for INR 12,37,500 as the runner-up cash prize.

Singh has been grinding online poker for a quite a while now and has significant titles like Spartan Mega Stack last November to his name. We spoke to him after the win and he was elated beyond words to express his happiness. He said, “It’s great to again be on the winning track. I’ve been in the money in quite a few tournaments but without the first place.”

Singh, about his strategy to crack the Main Event, said, “I analysed a bit and thought that only winning flips won’t help get a new dimension to my game. I played a little too aggressive, chasing the draws and realized that to win I need to fold some huge hands too. I guess it worked this time as I laid down real big hands. I thank Spartan for they are really doing a good job at hosting big series and tourneys to make our dreams come true.”

The top talents of the country weren’t going to let this one go, and the field was studded with them. Some of them to finish in the money (top 70 places, min-cash INR 28,875) include Sagar Choudhury (6^th – INR 2,47,500), Bunty Batra (18^th – INR 66k), Pulkit Goyal (28^th – INR 49.5k), Aniket Waghmare (34^th – INR 41,250) and Siddarth Singhvi (36^th – INR 41,250).

Other regs to finish in the money on Spartan include Sahil Mahboobani (38^th), Nadeem Basha (45^th), Abhinav Iyer (47^th), Vivek Singh (53^rd), Pranjal Gandhi (59^th), one of Destiny 8.0 finalists Yowan Patel (65^th) and others. Keep reading GutshotMagazine.com for more such tournament roundups and for general poker news from around the world.

Don’t have an account on Spartan Poker? Check out their review page here, and don’t miss out on their bonuses, promotions, and guarantee-smashing tournaments. Sign-up now.

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