The years between 2017 and 2020 marked a turning point in the history of the Indian poker landscape with the country claiming its first five World Series of Poker (WSOP) gold bracelets in four consecutive years. Starting off with Aditya Sushant and Nipun Java claiming the first two in 2017 at WSOP’s tag team event.
Later it was India’s poker queen Nikita Luther winning the third bracelet for the country in the same event in 2018, followed by Abhinav Iyer becoming India’s first solo bracelet winner in 2019, taking the country’s tally to four bracelets. As the world went into lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, poker pro Kartik Ved made sure to add to the country’s WSOP bracelets by becoming the first online bracelet winner in the country.
The 2021 and 2022 WSOP seasons marked dry runs for the Indian pros. Although there were several Indians who cashed at multiple events, a bracelet remained out of sight. However, the two-year-long hiatus was broken by Ayush Arya in 2023.
Arya is a Delhi-based player who has grabbed headlines multiple times in the past for his notable results. Although he had been a regular crusher on the online felts, he first came to the spotlight for his spectacular win at the DPT High Roller in April 2022. He clinched the prestigious title and walked away with an impressive top prize of ₹32.94 Lakhs.
Coming to his WSOP bracelet win, Arya etched his name in the books of Indian poker history in the early hours of 20th September 2023. He outlasted a mammoth field of 10,812 entrants at Natural8’s WSOP Online Event #22: $400 COLOSSUS.
Event #22: COLOSSUS on the platform has a buy-in of $400. The event also had an advertised guarantee of $3 Million, which was crushed by the 10,812 entries who registered to play the event. Finally, the event amassed a colossal and envy-worthy prize pool of $4,065,312.
The event subsequently paid out to the top 1,398 finishers, thus making it one of the biggest WSOP events of the season.
The action-packed final table started off on 19th September 2023 at 11:30 PM (IST). Interestingly, Arya entered the final table holding a considerable advantage, having a chip stack of 124,304,813 (124.3 BBss) at his disposal. Continuing his dominance with his exceptional poker skills and strategy, Arya managed to stay on top of his game and sail through to victory.
Finally, it was the Indian pro against Ukraine’s Volodymyr “Vasyl Stus” Bartko. The final hand served as the perfect climax to the long-running final table. Arya, with his 9d 6h managed to flop two pairs against Volodymyr “Vasyl Stus” Bartko‘s Jh 6d on the 2c 6c 9s flop.
The turn and river of Kh 2d further cemented Arya’s lead and led him to victory. Arya triumphantly became India’s sixth WSOP bracelet winner adding his first-ever shiny new WSOP gold bracelet to his trophy case. With that, he also earned a staggering $331,878.31 (~₹2.76 Crores) for his top-place finish.
Interestingly, his winning amount makes his WSOP victory the second-largest one among the six winners, just behind Abhinav Iyer. Abhinav’s 2017 WSOP Closer victory still remains the biggest WSOP win with a paycheque of ₹3.87 Crores.
All eyes are now on this year’s WSOP, which is currently underway in Las Vegas. We are expecting a bigger Indian contingent at the ongoing series this year. Who will bring home the bracelet for India this time? Only time will tell. Keep following PokerProNews for the latest updates from the WSOP 2024.
