Prashanth Sekar
Prashanth Sekar, 29, was first introduced to poker in his final year of engineering. It was a hobby that would slowly become his life’s mission. He started playing in 2013 at live poker clubs in Bangalore, and it was in 2017 that he started playing seriously, grinding online as Iveyleague, alongside working as a product manager at an online gaming startup.
He played it slow and smart, working on his game, talking to better players and steadily moving up in stakes from buy-ins of 200 all the way up to 2000. His first big win came later that year at PokerBaazi Live in Bangalore.
He started researching, reading books and watching videos, taking coaching to improve his game. Towards the end of 2018, he began to hit a bad patch with several unfavourable results that lasted until February 2019. Not one to give up, he used a deposit offer on the PokerBaazi website and got a free ticket to the first edition of Game Changer tournament, India's biggest online poker tournament with a guaranteed prize pool of Rs 2.39 crores. He went on to ship the tournament, taking home Rs 33 lakh!
From left to right: Rubin, Prashanth and Ankit
He started playing poker professionally only a few months ago, but if his steady journey doesn’t sound impressive, here’s something that might. Before he started playing full-time, Prashanth had already raked up over Rs 1 crore in winnings!
What you should know if you've just started off your Poker journey
According to these three Indian Poker champions, beginners need to keep in mind a few guiding factors.
Rubin says, "It takes a lot of effort and commitment and often requires you to put everything else aside. But that’s the dynamic of the game, and of the profession. If results are what you are looking for, then keep learning, keep experimenting and most of all enjoy your time on the felts!”
Ankit asks aspiring poker players to: “Work on your basics with a single-minded focus and other things will take care of themselves. There will always be failures a.k.a. downswings, but with poker, you'll always come back a stronger person.”
Prashanth’s advice is to: “Take your time through it, work on your game for at least a year and when you're confident enough to make a lot of money consistently, go professional full time. And don’t forget to do your research.”