The recently concluded National Poker Series (NPS) set the stage for a much-needed poker boom in India by bringing India’s top poker players on a digital playground. Hosted by Baazi Games, India’s renowned gaming tech group, NPS is a premium tournament series open to all and aimed at enabling enthusiastic poker players in India to become true champions.

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India has a hidden goldmine of poker players as the tournament witnessed an astounding number of participants with total entries of 83,793; all vying for a prize pool of INR 19, 41, 87, 773.The first-ever edition of this prestigious poker tournament series, hosted on PokerBaazi.com, discovered master poker players across the country, finding its gold medallists on June 27. While the series initially offered a guaranteed prize pool of INR 15 crores, it concluded with an offering worth INR 19+ crores.

By creating the biggest virtual battlefield, the tournament tested the participants’ mental strength, endurance, and analytical skills. One can follow all the updates about the tournament on its dedicated show called ‘The Pre-Flop Show’, which also gives the audience a glimpse the participants' journey and the strategies they used to win the game.

Of all the 8 marquee events, the players were most excited about the ‘Golden Rush’ event, which was considered as the highest value event in Indian Poker history. For other poker fanatics, the platform offered a FreeRoll where the participants could play from a pool of INR 1 Crore simply by downloading the app.

National Poker Series: The Hunt For India's Best Poker Mind

India as a country has a lot of potential as a poker-playing nation, and people are leaving their lucrative jobs to become professional poker players. Unfortunately, the nation’s poker enthusiasts have been inclined towards international platforms to prove the mettle because of the lack of one in the country.

By launching a national championship for poker, Baazi Games took an important step towards clearing the misconceptions about the game. It also created awareness among people about how the sport challenges the brain in multi-faceted ways. The interviews of the master poker players who participated in the tournament are a testimony that the game is undoubtedly the next big sport for India.

Giving the players a much-awaited battleground, NPS set the stage for the country’s growing poker community. This first-of-its-kind digital tournament revolutionised the way poker, as a game, is perceived in the country. More and more poker players are participating as the game is gaining acceptance and recognition.

In the 64-tournament schedule, the country’s best poker minds challenged each other to win from a guaranteed prize pool of INR 15 crores and win 192 medals through the series while 3 medals additionally were reserved for the podium finishers of the series. Podium finishers are those who collected the most valuable haul of medals.

Here are the top 3 podium finishers who will get an opportunity to represent India in one of the biggest global poker events to be conducted in Las Vegas.

Gold: Mohammad Azhar Tak, from Nagaur, Rajasthan

Silver: Ankit Wadhawan, from Chandigarh, Punjab

Bronze: Kritagya Sharma, from New Delhi

Top 3 Winners from the Main event:

Gold: Mohammad Azhar Tak, from Nagaur, Rajasthan

Silver: Ashwani Vishwakarma, from Satna, Madhya Pradesh

Bronze: From Mumbai, Maharashtra, playing under the name of ‘Thing_again’

And the winners for Golden Rush Tournament were:

Gold: Vivek Bajaj, from Ranchi, Jharkhand

Silver: From Jaipur, Rajasthan playing under the name of ‘neha94’

Bronze: Sumit Sapra, from Zirakpur in Mohali, Punjab

The NPS tournament not only already got the eyeball rolling, it also put Indian players on the world map; rewriting the history for Poker in India.

This is a partnered post.