Aces Unlimited

Aces Unlimited, a multi-format tournament series kicked off in Goa at Casino Royale during the month of November and lasted for 4 days, from the 18th to the 21st. The tournament, which varied not only in the buy-ins but also in the format of play, included the following:

DAY 1 - 18TH NOVEMBER - 5K RE-BUY+ADD-ON TOURNAMENT



The Rs. 5000 re-buy tournament kicked off at 8:45 pm with 68 entrants and was action packed right from the beginning with a player getting knocked out in the first hour. The re-buys were rampant with table 9 leading the way in the number of re-buys. Bad beats were conspicuous by their absence with hands like AQ legitimately holding up against AT and AK’s predictably splitting pots without the one card flushes etc. The end of the re-buy period saw a lot of action but the play sobered up after with the elimination of one player and a three way all in won by KK being the only hands worth mentioning.

By about 12:10 am the prizes were announced with the final 9 being in the money. With 44 players left and the blinds increasing, the short stack players really started to feel the pressure leading to aggressive play which resulted in all-ins all around and 4 players busting out in the next hour.

The elimination of the bubble boy took place at 3:25 am and the final 9 were left fighting for the Aces Title. The first from the final table to get knocked out was Remesh R, when his QQ were beat in a 3 way pot. With the money bubble crossed, play got more exciting as players took more chances and made plays at others. Amit Varma however owes his 8th place elimination to this tactic, when he pushed all in on a stone cold bluff and got called by Anand Dalmia with top pair who happened to be the next player to get sent home. Intervention then proceeded to eliminate the rest of the competition by knocking out Prashant and Stanley Decosta in two consecutive hands, soon to be followed by Kavin and Jober, which left him to play heads up with Anil D. After a lot of all-ins, Anil, left with a short stack pushed all in with Q7, only to be called by Aditya with T5o, who upon hitting his 5 pair on the river won the tournament.

DAY 2 - 19TH NOVEMBER - 12K KNOCK-OUT BOUNTY TOURNAMENT



The knock-out bounty tournament kicked off to a late start and saw the first elimination bounty collected well within the first hour of play. The players were eager to eliminate each other and therefore the game was aggressive all around. There was a twist in the tale when the tournament organizers announced an extra 2K bounty on Aces Unlimited Event 1 winner Aditya ‘Intervention Agarwal and Poker Dream Challenge WSOP 2011 package winner Rajesh Goyal, as these 2 players were far ahead of the others in terms of both stack sizes and bounty’s collected. However within the next hour and a half, Intervention got sent home courtesy Rohit Bhalla who at this point had a very good chance to win the tournament. Rajesh on the other hand, was going strong, continuously adding more and more bounty’s to his kitty and
eventually eliminating Anand, leaving the final 9 to battle it out for the title. Santosh was the first elimination at the final table and Sanjay was the bubble boy after being eliminated in 7th place. Within the next half an hour, the final table was down to 2 players with Sanjay, Amit, Vikram and Mukul being sent home in quick succession. The heads up game between the final 2 lasted all of 5 minutes after which Rajesh Goyal’s A9 won against Sandeep Gadodia’s KJ in a pre flop all in and the Poker Dream Challenge WSOP 2011 package
winner won the Aces Unlimited 12K Bounty tournament.

DAY 3 - 20TH NOVEMBER - 15K SHOOT-OUT TOURNAMENT



The third day saw 42 players registered playing at 6 tables, with the last person left on each table advancing to the final table. The tournament was action packed and fast paced with eliminations and double-ups all around.

The final table, which was formed at about 1:50 am included Rajeev, Abhay, Pankaj, Jasven, Mike and
Farukh S. The final table saw quite a bit of action as many players tried their hand at bluffing and making plays. To add to the excitement, the tournament organizers announced a bounty worth 5k in vouchers courtesy Provogue on Rajeev Kanjani. The time came for the final table to take its first break and at this point Mike was chip leader with 12700 chips and Farukh was the shortest stack with just 3150 chips. Considering his short stack he was admirably not the first to get eliminated when play resumed but did follow Pankaj in 6th place to get knocked out 5th. Mike then proceeded to add to his stack by knocking out Rajeev K. and collected the 5k in vouchers as well. With the consequent elimination of Abhay due to 2 all in pots that he lost, it was heads up between Jasven and Mike.

The final few hands of the tournament saw a significant turn of fortunes as Mike lost consecutive hands to Jasven, whose 33 ended up wining him the tournament in a pre flop all in against Mike’s Td2d.

DAY 4 - 21ST NOVEMBER - 20K FREEZE/ SHOOT-OUT TOURNAMENT

The final day of the tournament saw 23 players with 10K stacks fighting it out for the Main Event championship. There was action early on in the tournament with 3 eliminations within the first half an hour of play, 2 of which were courtesy Rajiv Raut, who as a result was sitting on a monster stack. By the time the prize pool was announced there were 19 players left and it was after this that the action really started heating up with pot sizes increasing and players being eliminated.

The final table was formed relatively quickly, just 3.5 hours into the tournament and was quite the table as it included Jasven who won the Shootout Event the day before, Rajesh Goyal who won the Aces Unlimited Event 2 and The Poker Dream Challenge and Lawrence Sanjay who won a WSOP package in The Poker Dream Challenge among others.

There was some early action seen with Abhay doubling up followed by Pankaj M being the first elimination, all within 15 minutes of play. Shortly after Lawrence busted out as his KJ, top pair with jack kicker was beaten by Abhay’s KQ. Amit Verma was the next player to be sent home and Ricky Chopra was the unfortunate bubble boy as his KJ was beaten by Abhay’s AQ in a pre flop all in. The very next hand saw the elimination of short-stacked Rajeev Raut once again thanks to Abhay, followed by the elimination of Girish in 4th place. Jasven was the player to get knocked out in 3rd place after a very unlucky pre flop all in against Rajesh, where his QT got beaten by J10 all thanks to a J that hit on the turn. The last 40 minutes of the tournament involved intense heads up play between Rajesh Goyal and Abhay and culminated in one final hand where Rajesh raised pre flop with Kh2h and got called by Abhay with JcQh. The flop saw a huge hand for Rajesh with top pair and flush draw and only mid pair for Abhay. On the turn, once the flush hit and both players ended up going all in, the deal was sealed in favor of Rajesh who became the champion of the Aces Unlimited Main Event, his second title during the tournament series.