Table of Contents
Top Texas Holdem players in India
1) Nipun Java
The most notable tournament grinder from India in the poker world today is undoubtedly Nipun Java, who was still only a semi-professional until 2014, but had already surpassed $450,000 in winnings that year.
In the spring of 2014, he won $350,000 in two events, first finishing second in the Los Angeles Poker Classic ($114,955) and then winning the WSOP Circuit Bicycle Station Main Event ($226,785).
Java continued to accumulate prize money over the next few years by winning a series of four-figure buy-in tournaments, and in 2017, he proved himself to the entire poker community with two gold bracelets. First he teamed up with AdityaSushant to take down the $1,000 double, each earning $75,318. He went on to win the $1,000 buy-in WSOP Online Championship for $237,688.
Now, Java has taken it up a notch by playing in the High Roller event, and this week he played in the $25,000 High Roller event at the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open, finishing in 12th place for $70,000.
2) Vivek Rajkumar
Rajkumar’s young face often makes his opponents wonder if he is of legal age to play at the poker table. But don’t let his youthful appearance fool you, Vivek Rajkumar is a killer at the table and despite only winning one title in 2015, he is still number one on the all-time list of Indian players with half the prize money of Java.
Under the nickname “Psyduck101”, he has scored a total of $500,000 online, and in live tournaments, he won the WPT at Borgata in 2008 for $140. Rajkumar has four other six-figure cashes to his credit.
3) Aditya Agarwal
A player who is the embodiment of Texas Holdem in India, Aditya “vention” Agarwal’s long-standing relationship with PokerStars has made him a star in the industry.
According to PocketFives, he has $763,391 in online winnings, and his profile on the PokerStars Stars page says he has over $4 million in online winnings.
Agarwal has been playing almost every summer for the entire WSOP schedule and has done quite well. He has made the Main Event money ring seven times in 2007, 2008, 2013,2014, 2015, 2016 and 2018.
Three of those times he took home the grand prize of his career, and his best result came in the APPT Macau Main Event when he finished second ($242,211).
4) Amit Jain
Perhaps the least known player on this list, Amit Jain, didn’t win as many millions as his compatriots in live events, with his total tournament winnings coming in at just $208,600, the best of which was a $38,840 win in his hometown’s Hawker event.
But Jain’s real success has been in online play, where his account “bblacklegend” has 1.4 million dollars in winnings according to PocketFives, and in 2014 he was ranked 132nd in the world by PocketFives.
In 2015, he won the World Championship of Online Poker $2,100 buy-in event for $206,028, but in the last two years, Jain has not been very active in the poker scene and seems to be mainly based in India. According to his Twitter updates, he is currently the captain of the Mumbai Poker Club, sponsored by the local adda52 site, and is playing in the local poker league.
5) Raghav Bansal
Bansal ranks fourth on the all-time money list for Indian players. His winnings in live poker events are $970,825, which is not easy since it started in 2015. 2015 saw Bansal play in the WSOP, reaching the final table of the $2,500 event and then making the money circle in the Main Event.
Then in 2016, Bansal made the WSOP money round seven times, and in 2017 he went to Macau, where he finished second in the Macau Poker Cup for $137,587, and finished second in the PokerStars Championship Macau Hawker ($335,910) that year.
Bansal’s online results are not bad either, with a total of $417,156 in winnings, mostly on PokerStars. He travels frequently between Macau and the US to play live, and is also quite active online.
