Patna's Kumar Chandra Rohit emerges winner of poker tournament 'GOAT'

Patna's Kumar Chandra Rohit emerges winner of poker tournament 'GOAT' (Image Source: Google)

Patna's Kumar Chandra Rohit emerged as the champion of the poker tournament called Greatest of All Tournaments (GOAT), the organisers announced on Wednesday.

Competing for a record prize pool of Rs 7.2 Cr., Rohit -- an Associate Director in Data Sciences with Walmart -- claimed the first position and prize money of Rs 94,69,000 at GOAT, which was organised by PokerBaazi - India's poker platform.

The tournament kicked off on October 30, 2022, with the qualifier tournaments and it finally culminated on November 7 and registered a huge total of 7196 entries.

"Poker is a true game of strategy and skill. While I have been playing poker for a long time, I never thought that I would be at the top in India's largest poker tournament by defeating very skilled opponents and some star names from the Indian poker circuit," said winner Kumar Chandra Rohit (aka CK).

The second and third spots were clinched by Puneet Sachan and Anmol Mehta both being popular names in the poker fraternity and hailing from Delhi. While the former took home prize money of Rs 68,73,418, the latter won Rs 31,51,848 to complete the places on the podium.

Apart from the top three, there were a host of other winners who made a mark for themselves. The fourth position was grabbed by Avish Sharma (Jammu) who won Rs 27,12,892, Shashank Shekhar (Mumbai) won Rs 23,02,720 and Vishal Kumar (Delhi) won Rs 19,42,920 who stood fifth and sixth respectively.

The last four positions of the top 10 were clinched by -- Vinayak Bajaj (Mumbai) who won Rs 16,19,100, Anish Grover (Delhi) who won Rs 13,24,064, Arman Rahul Baldota (Pune) who won 10,00,244 and Vaibhav Tamani (Jaipur), winning prize money of Rs 6,83,620.

"With each major tournament, the quality of players and competition is improving and there are no clear favorites despite big names in the pool. I would like to congratulate all the winners on their achievement and participants who helped the tournament reach its scale" said Navkiran Singh, Founder and CEO, Baazi Games.

"The record setting numbers of G.O.A.T have only strengthened our belief that we are moving in the right direction of establishing poker as a sport and will see many Poker GOATs emerging from India in this global sport in the years to come," he added.