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Gutshot Player Of The Month Suraj Yadav - On A Chase For The LeaderBoard By Donna Amo The 11th edition of India Online Poker Championship (IOPC) took the poker fever in July 2021 to an all-time high. Along with the intense poker action, there were many players emerging into the spotlight with their consistent gameplay and performance on the online felts. Out of these players, the Advisory Board of Gutshot Magazine selected BLITZPOKER player, Suraj N Yadav aka ‘MR. BEAST,’ as July’s Gutshot Player of the Month. Right from the start of IOPC, Yadav managed to catch the attention of the poker community by shipping the IOPC Launch Party event. While he is not a professional player, his skills in poker continued to shine throughout his IOPC run and warranted him the spot of Gutshot Player of Month – July 2021. Here’s our conversation with this upbeat and enthusiastic player.
Congratulations on being chosen as the Gutshot Player of the month. How do you feel about it? I feel very honoured to be chosen as the Gutshot Player of The Month. Being named the player of the month amongst such a vast field of players gives me immense satisfaction. What has motivated you to keep on playing as a regular grinder on BLITZPOKER and having up to 53 ITM finishes? My love for the game has kept me motivated for the long grinds on BLITZPOKER. The number of high valued tournaments at IOPC inspired me to keep on playing. Every poker player has a story behind their introduction to poker. What is yours? I started playing poker in 2018. Along with my friends, I used to play cash games every 24
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weekend when I was in college. I accompanied my brother to Las Vegas when he won the MOP Las Vegas package to participate in WSOP in 2019. The trip to Las Vegas was the beginning of my MTT journey. Being in Vegas, playing tournaments in casinos, and seeing the top players in the world fight out for the bracelets made me realise the value of poker and made me fall in love with the game.
Gutshot Player of the month Suraj Yadav
You were a regular presence at IOPC July 2021 and even managed to clinch the IOPC Launch Party title. What did your grind schedule look like during this period, and how did you prepare for it? IOPC is the biggest online poker event in India. I tried hard to ship any of the tournaments. in the previous two editions of IOPC - I came close but couldn’t clinch a title. So, for IOPC July 2021, I had
prepared myself for those long grinds in order to win a title this time around. So, when I was able to do it for the first tournament of the series, it helped me become more focused and even aim for the IOPC Leaderboard. The leaderboard race was a long and tiring one, in all honesty, I had to put in 14-15 hours every day. I had an excellent run throughout the series, where I was constantly at the top 3 places
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