Jaideep Sajwan Wins OPN Challenger Series; Ready to Play World’s Biggest Poker Tournament in Las Vegas in July

In January 2016, OnlinePokerNews launched the Challengers Series wherein 12 rising talents of poker in India – Vinay B, Jaideep Sajwan, Vikram Kumar, Aashray Arood, Ashish Ahuja, Varun Gulati, Yuvraj Singh, Rajat Sharma, Abhinav Mahajan, Niwesh Sharma, Deepanshu Kumar and Manoj R were enrolled to compete for an entry to the world’s biggest poker tournament. The objective was to provide a platform for budding Indian talents to compete in the international arena. After 4 months of battle at the online and live poker felt, Jaideep Sajwan clinched the prize.

“It’s every poker player’s dream to play the WSOP MAIN event one day. From the time I started playing poker and saw the reruns of WSOP on ESPN, playing the Main Event was on my bucket list. Never did I think, I would get into it this way. Big thanks to OPN for conducting such a promotion which I luckily won”, says Jaideep Sajwan after the completion ofOPN Challenger Series.

“It’s always good to see aspiring players pursuing poker professionally and dedicating their time and skill to reach the bigger stages. Through OPN Challengers Series, we intended to find such players in the country and provide them an opportunity to play in the world’s biggest tournament”, said Mohit Agarwal CEO of OnlinePokerNews.in. “I congratulate Jaideep for winning this competition and wish him good luck for the tournament in Las Vegas. OPN will host similar competitions in future to boost more poker talents of India”, he added.

The challenger series brought an opportunity for the poker players in India to give an all-round performance in Texas Holdem and Pot Limit Omaha in both tournaments and regular game formats at the online as well as live felt. The 12 shortlisted players were provided an online bankroll of Rs 25,000 on Adda52.com and they had a long duration of 4 months to reach the pole position of the Challenger Series leaderboard.

Manoj R, Vikram Kumar, Jaideep Sajwan and Rajat Sharma earned valuable points for their In-the-money finishes in live tournaments in Goa in this duration. Varun Gulati, Jaideep Sajwan and Vinay B were the top point earners via online tournaments on Adda52.com. However, it was Jaideep Sajwan winning the entry to world’s biggest tournament for his 360° performance across all 3 parameters of the leaderboard.

OPN Challenger Series was truly successful in achieving its objective of boosting the rising poker talents of India to a higher level as 2 players enrolled in the challenger series got sponsorship contract from 2 Indian sites. Jaideep Sajwan was signed by PokerMania as their first team pro member while Vikram Kumar joined the Team PokerBaazi pro. Other players in the series have also upped their game and are performing well in the national level tournaments. For more information you can visit here.