Until last week, India has seen an incredible TRP rating for its
sports channel, thanks to the much talked about
IPL cricket series. With Mumbai Indians winning the grand finale in a breathless game, the IPL ended with a surprising note. But if you are thinking that with IPL, your sports appetite is over, you are wrong. For
Poker Sports League (PSL) is on your platter and tomorrow the finale will be played at Goa. Well, it’s Poker and what’s fun without casinos!
In an
exclusive interview with Business Insider, Pranav Bagai, CEO of
Sports Poker League is very clear that Poker isn’t gambling. “The vision of the leagues is to sportify the game of Poker. We want to educate wider audience about the fact that poker is a skill-based sport – not chance, not gambling.The design of the Poker Sports League itself proves that it’s a game of skill. Anybody who wants to be part of the team will have to perform well in multiple events and the luck element definitely goes away. It’s a game of the probabilities, mathematics, and logic and the design of the league proves that.”
Bagai got his idea in 2015, when the Vice Chairman of Dabur India Ltd, Amit Burman connected with him. “After developing the format of the league over a couple of months, the project was kept on hold for more than a year. In 2016, Anuj Gupta, Founder of Adda52.com – India’s largest Poker portal - expressed his interest in starting an offline
poker league to me. Soon, Mr Burman and Anuj connected - leading to the inception of Poker Sports League,” said Bagai.
Format of the game The Poker Sports League is one unified poker league, which offers Indian poker players the chance to be a part of 12 teams who fight it out for the ultimate glory in poker. Just like cricket or hockey premiere leagues in India, Poker Sports League has teams from Kolkata, Delhi, Hyderabad, Goa, Gujarat and various other states. Unlike cricket that continues for month, PSL is a 4 day event. There is remuneration for every player who is selected as an active player in any PSL team. Each player will also have a winning incentive which will be a percentage of the total prize pool of the team. These remunerations will increase based on team performance in the Finale. Also the remuneration for Season 2 will at least be double of Year 1.
75% of the winnings go to the Team Owner, 20% towards Player Incentive and 5% towards Mentor Incentive. The Prize Pool is Rs 3.36 crore where position 1 will get Rs 1.5 crore and Position 2 Rs 1 crore. Positio 3 and 4 would be receiving Rs 50 lakhs and Rs 35 lakhs respectively.
Just like the team owners and founder, the team members are equally excited. Captain of Goan Nuts Team, Dhaval Mudgal, is one of the most consistent performers at the Asia Circuit. He has been a part of the Poker industry for a long time in various roles, as Chief Editor of Card player India, Tournament Organizer and Player.
Last evening ended with Mumbai and Punjab occupying the top position in terms of total points scored.
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