HomeCrushing victory for Manish “thekid” Lakhotia at the Championships Event! Lakhotia entered the final table as chip leader, ploughed through four players to ship the ₹ 12.15 lakhs (~US$ 16,600) first prize and lock up the APT Guardian Trophy and APT Championship Ring. This was Lakhotia’s first APT featured event title which he adds to his side event win earned in Vietnam back in July 2019. He also won an added 50,000 in real cash bonus for topping the Daily Leaderboard.
Date: January 21
Buy in: ₹ 22,000 (~US$ 300)
Guarantee: ₹ 40 lakhs (~US$ 54,700)
Entries: 275 (161 uniques / 114 re-entries)
Prize pool: ₹ 55 lakhs (~US$ 75,200)
ITM: 36 places
Running time: 9 hours and 47 minutes
*Read up on the action via our live updates.
Final table payouts
1st Manish “thekid” Lakhotia – ₹ 12.15 lakhs
2nd Shardul “duuurrrr” Parthasarathi – ₹ 8.53 lakhs
3rd Akshay “powershell” Asawa – ₹ 5.48 lakhs
4th Dhaval “Rehab77” Mudgal – ₹ 4.06 lakhs
5th Akshay “sherlock52” Nasa – ₹ 3.05 lakhs
6th Aditya “eatingseeds” Degala – ₹ 2.44 lakhs
Event recap
The featured Championships Event was a six max deep stacked tournament. After a lengthy 264 minutes of late registration 275 entered to breach the guarantee for a sweeter ₹ 55 lakhs (~US$ 75,200) prize pool. Among those contributing but failing to cash was Gaurav “gaug17” Sood who re-entered a staggering 10 times. During the bubble round with 37 players remaining, Guneet “guntz” Kwatra‘s 3♥ K♥ two pair fell to Anujkumar “aatmann” Kodam‘s 4♣ Q♠ flush on a board 3♦ 5♠ K♠ 10♠ J♠ to kick off the money round.
By the time the field was cut in half with 18 players left across 3 tables, eventual champion Manish “thekid” Lakhotia was already one of the leaders, just behind Dhaval “Rehab77” Mudgal and Rachit “babe_ramdev” Soni. He would end up knocking out 9 players that included Shardul “duuurrrr” Parthasarathi at heads up.
Race to the finish
After Laksh Pal “boomtlt23” Singh (18th) and Ankit “d00mtr00p3r” Wadhawan (17th) departed, Lakhotia booted the next two players Anujkumar “aatmaan” Kodam (16th) and Ashish “rocky3705” Ahuja (15th). APT Vietnam 2019 Main Event champion Akshay “sherlock52” Nasa matched Lakhotia by sending off Ratul “luna” Steves (14th), and Harsh Kumar “100crdream” Dembla (13th), then it was Lakhotia again dropping the axe to claim all of Ankur “Stonecold” Sehgal’s stack.
Down to two tables with 12 remaining, Nasa added another head to his list, Rahul “pokerjoker” Mittal in 12th place while Shardul “duuurrrr” Parthasarathi eliminated Nadeem “SpadeHunter” Basha. Next shoving action was to Lakhotia’s favor, denying two players, Pranay “setmeup” Chawla (9th) and Rachit “baba_ramdev” Soni (8th) then Parthasarathi railed another – Armaan “Armaan007” Kochhar to bring the field down to one final table of six players.
Lakhotia led in the chasing pack and stayed ahead for the most part. He only dropped rank when he lost a big pot to both Parthasarathi and Nasa. First to the rail was Aditya “eatingseeds” Degala with big slick unable to crack Nasa’s pocket fours. It took over an hour before the next casualty. APT champion Nasa’s A♥ Q♥ missed the board for Lakhotia’s 9♣ 9♠ to hold.
From there, it only took ten more minutes for Lakhotia to finish off the rest starting with Mudgal, then Akshay “powershell” Asawa on a bad beat to face Parthasarathi at heads up. Up nearly 7:1, the final hand quickly arrived with 7♦ 7♣ victorious over K♣ 10♣.
Congratulations to Manish “thekid” Lakhotia for his crushing triumph at the Championships Event!