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Gutshot Turns 10
A DECADE IN THE MAKING: GUTSHOT TURNS
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Being the first and only poker magazine in India, Gutshot Magazine has grown since its humble beginnings. What started as a small event booklet during India Poker Championship’s (IPC) 2011 season has now turned into a magazine and a website. A decade, two print magazines, and six e-magazines later, Gutshot continues to forge its way to becoming the biggest gaming magazine in the country.
On the significant milestone of its 10th anniversary, there was no better person to ask than our editor-in-chief, Peter Abraham, about the genesis of the brand. Aside from Gutshot Magazine, Abraham is also the cofounder of IPC and gaming platform Spartan Poker. He takes us through the magazine’s beginnings, its journey and sheds light on where it is headed.
How did the idea for the magazine come about?
My close friend and business partner, Sameer Rattonsey, and I had
started IPC in 2010 and towards the end of 2011, we wanted to showcase the winners of these events through some kind of reading material that we could provide during our event. So, that’s where the thought and the idea for Gutshot Magazine first came about, in the form of an event booklet more than a magazine. The idea was to promote a fledgling sport like poker.
What was your vision for the magazine?
Around the time that the idea struck us, popular sports magazines in India were primarily about cricket and football. These magazines were already showcasing celebrities in those individual sports, but there were no stars, let alone superstars in the poker space. So, we thought that since IPC is already a gathering ground for people who play poker professionally, semiprofessionally, or even just as a hobby, we might as well start spreading word about the winners, other upcoming players and information about other tournaments within this community. The vision to create superstars out of Indian poker players and get them more mainstream coverage has not changed since our inception.
What were some of the challenges you faced while trying to launch the magazine?
When we started, we had limited knowledge of how to run a magazine. Everything we had seen and done till then was quite new to us. We were readers rather than publishers at that point. We had an idea for the kind of content that we wanted to go into the magazine, but the challenge was then putting it in a more palatable and reader-friendly way. As the team started growing, we started consulting external resources like content creators and designers who gave us an idea about how things in a magazine need to be. Now a decade in, we have managed to better our look and feel significantly, and I am quite proud about how far we have come.
How did the name ‘Gutshot Magazine’ come about?
The name just struck me one day, there was no major thought behind it per se. But it was close to our hearts because of our poker background. We just wanted something that had a connection to poker but did not necessarily want the word ‘poker’ in it. This was because we always knew that we would someday go beyond poker and try out other content verticals. So, for the general public, Gutshot Magazine is just a cool or interesting sounding name but, if you’re a poker
player, you will know what the term means.
Tell us some of your proudest magazine moments.
The very first time we released the booklet which had Abhishek Goindi on the cover. The 10-12 pages event booklet was like the first formal version of Gutshot Magazine. It was a huge deal to see an idea in our head get converted into reality and we distributed it and even kept it in the poker rooms. That first print was one of my proudest moments. After that, we had taken a break in the middle and stopped printing the magazine but then restarted it two years later. We’ve had two breaks in the middle, but every time we have come back looking bigger and better and that is something that we can definitely be proud of.
What do you think is the best part of Gutshot Magazine?
The best part of Gutshot is that there is nothing like it in India. We are the only poker magazine in the country and now that we’ve started writing more content with other kinds of news beyond poker, we are quite a unique offering for game enthusiasts. We also figured that as we go along, poker will start to become just one of many verticals that we’ll cover. I expect us to become more like a gaming magazine with a focus on things like tech, lifestyle, and anything that is directly or indirectly related to various games and sports.
Where do you see the magazine in the next five years and what is your wish for it in 2021?
We want to incorporate other verticals like rummy, fantasy sports, esports and even horse racing.
We would love to cover the entire gamut of real money gaming content that is out there. These content verticals are like the first step and we’ve already started fleshing out that part of the journey. We also wanted to try and provide more content in the form of video and audio. In the past, there have been some poker podcasts and audio content that we’re looking to restart as well.
Video is one of the most consumed forms of content out there, so we are looking at video production in a more serious way. We want to be a more well-rounded media house. While the print side of things has taken a pause, the e-magazine has already been introduced. We also have plans to expand our presence on social media and provide more content on our YouTube and Facebook channels.
For 2021, we’d love to be able to restart the print magazine but that is wait-and-watch given COVID-19. In five years, I’d like for Gutshot to be a proper media house with its fingers in print, audio and video production creating gaming related content.
