Meet the poker prodigy and streaming sensation, Harsh Dev Jhirmiria. Hailing from Mumbai, Harsh boasts a remarkable poker resume with over 28 online titles and several noteworthy live cashes to his name. A proud NPS gold medalist and IPC title winner, Harsh has won several prestigious online titles, with the IOPC #76 SATURDAY PRIME victory for Rs. 4.47 lakhs being his most prominent title so far.
Following his success on the online poker felts, Harsh ventured into the live poker arena, making notable appearances at the prestigious WPT, USOP, and DPT events. He first caught the attention of poker enthusiasts when he final-tabled the WPT Prime India Freezeout in April 2023. He continued his momentum with a cash finish in the teams event at DPT July 2023 and an impressive 22nd place for VND 33 Million in the USOP Hanoi Event #13: VND 8.80 Million Mini Main Event in September 2023.
Harsh has not only established himself as a formidable poker player but has also grabbed the attention of the poker audiences as an engaging and entertaining streamer. Recently, we got the chance to interview Harsh for an insightful conversation about his journey as a poker player and streamer, his approach to audience engagement, the challenges in poker streaming, his favorite streamers, and more. Join us in unraveling his evolution as a poker player and streamer.
PokerproNews: Hi Harsh, thank you for speaking with us! Can you introduce yourself and share a bit about your journey as a player and streamer. What inspired you to combine both aspects of playing and streaming?
Harsh Dev: Hello, I am a poker player based out of Mumbai and I started my poker journey as a streamer on YouTube and then gradually kept on learning more and more about the game and improving as a player in the process.
Pokerpronews: You recently streamed ENDBOSS 5CR GTD QUALIFIER 9, which garnered significant engagement and interaction. Could you tell us about that and share some key highlights from that stream? Additionally, what factors do you believe contributed to the success and positive reception of the stream?
Harsh Dev: So, this stream that I did in collaboration with PokerBaazi was a dual stream with Vikhyat Ahlawat, famously known on the tables as “SuperSaiyan”. It’s always fun to have a dual stream with a person with whom you are comfortable and the viewers get to watch a fun conversation effortlessly. And also that day we both fired bullets like there is no tomorrow, which made it a bit more exciting and people enjoyed it so much as it was all real and raw.
Poker Newz: How do you approach engaging with your audience during live streams, especially when covering high-stakes qualifiers like ENDBOSS?
Harsh Dev: When I am streaming poker, my main focus is to give the people, who are watching me play, the worth for their time in the form of some jokes, information, fancy plays and many more things. While streaming, the viewers’ entertainment is what I prioritize, even over my gameplay and strategy.
Poker Newz: Besides poker, you engage in streaming other games as well. Could you share insights into a variety of games you stream and discuss the difference between your poker audience and the audience for these different games?
Harsh Dev: Most of the audience on my channel is from the poker community itself, but the idea behind streaming other games like Valorant, GTA V, Chess, BGMI etc., was to build an audience from outside of the poker community and spread a word of poker and promote it organically.
Pokerpronews: Streaming poker is not easy. What challenges have you faced as a poker streamer, and how have you overcome them? And what opportunities has streaming brought to your poker career?
Harsh Dev: Streaming looks easy, but it’s not at all easy, because while playing poker you have to be mentally focused and you have to worry about many things like OBS display, Mic, BG music and many more technical issues which take up space of your mental focus. It gets exhausting after streaming for hours and affects your decision making as well, but just focusing on keeping the audience engaged and not worrying much about anything else has made me overcome these challenges.
Streaming gave me an opportunity to be a part of The Player Hunt season 2, where I got to meet great people and even legends of the game, and it helped me grow immensely. The main advantage I got from streaming was that I was able to apply whatever I was learning in terms of games by not investing anything from my pocket in my learning phase.
Poker Newz: Poker streaming is fast picking up in India with a new crop of streamers emerging. How do you see its future? Are there any trends or innovations in streaming technology that you think will impact the poker streaming community?
Harsh Dev: It’s good to see so many budding and talented poker streamers coming up and generating healthy competition in the streaming industry, and it will only keep on growing from here on.
Poker Newz: Who are the streamers you admire the most, both domestically and internationally, and why do you love them?
Harsh Dev: Domestically, I enjoy the streams of Parth Jain i.e. “yourpokerguy” as he is very raw and himself on the stream, and he is the same in person as well and that’s why I enjoy his streams a lot. Internationally, I love watching “BencB”, “Rampage poker”, “Dnegs” as there is a lot to learn from them.
Poker Newz: Finally, any message or advice for those aspiring to become poker streamers in India?
Harsh Dev: I am in no place to give any advice to someone, but just be yourself, value the time your audience is spending on your stream and treat each and every viewer of yours with respect.
Keep following PokerproNews for such inspiring stories of poker players and streamers from India!
