Poker is a fun game, which is fast catching the nerves of Indian masses. Although it is not an easy way to make a living, there are already many professional poker players who have developed the ability and skills to stay in the game and are earning enough money to live comfortably. In fact, these people think out of the box and probably don’t want to go back to working 60 hours. They prefer playing poker for living rather being stuck in those boring jobs. This is perhaps the reason why they have left their jobs for poker.
A Look at Successful Poker Faces Who Left Their Jobs To Become Professional Poker Players:
Kunal Patni
Kunal Patni is a banker hailing from the commercial capital- Mumbai. Right from the start, he had guts to become a successful professional poker player. Initially, he used to play poker recreationally with freinds and colleagues since 2012. However, he became serious about poker when had a great run in the Asian Championship of Poker (ACOP) in 2014. Later, Adda52 (India’s largest poker website) approached him to be a sponsored pro for them in January 2015. That was really when he took the call on giving up his banking career for poker. Since then, there has been no looking back for Kunal.
Today, Kunal Patni is a star player from India with several big milestones in his kitty. Having over $175,073 in total live earnings, he had many deeps runs and cashes across several big money events including Deltin Poker Tournaments (DPT), World Series of Poker (WSOP), World Poker Tour (WPT), PokerStars Championship Macau, APT Asia Poker Championship, Macau Poker Cup and many more.
Tarun Goyal
A software engineer worked in IT hub of Bangalore, Tarun Goyal hails from Bathinda in Punjab. First time he heard about poker was from adda52. He picked up the game back in 2012 and started playing on major sites like Adda52, PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, etc.
He is also one of the few players who left their full time jobs to pursue their career in poker.Playing poker for about 5 years, he is now a well-known name in live as well as online poker circuit. He was living his poker dream back in 2016. That year, he won DPT 10 Kickoff for a whopping INR 635,000 and then he followed up with several big wins in online events on India’s largest poker site-Adda52.
He not only won big online tournaments, but also won the Adda52 POY 2016 title. Recently, Tarun caught up media attention for his winning 3 heads-up events in Poker Sports League (PSL), which concluded on 29th May 2017. Like many players, he has also this dream of going to WSOP and winning the bracelet for India.
Abhineet Jain
A management graduate from XLRI, Abhineet Jain is one of the prominent names in India’s poker industry. Like many others, he too got introduced to the game of poker during his college days. After college, he joined Tata Motors and worked there as a manager for few years.Despite a tight schedule at office, he put decent volume online and also played some of the live tournaments in Goa bagging cashes across several events in Deltin Poker Tournament and India Poker Championship (IPC). His recent cash includes 16,098, which he got in 15K Bounty at Deltin Poker Tournament February 2017. After quitting his full time job at Tata Motors, he is enjoying success in his new passion & career-poker.
Well-known by his online name as ‘pokemon13’, Abhineet has earned a big name in India’s poker industry, especially in the past few years. Be it high stakes PLO cash game or online MTTs, he has excelled in all popular poker games and tournaments. Today, he is one of the best PLO players in the country and is approached by several well-known pros for PLO coaching. Though his forte is PLO, he plays many Texas Holdem games as well. He has won several big money live and online tournaments.
Mayank Jain
The story of Mayank is amazing. Like most youngsters, Mayank Jain picked up the game during his college days. Studying at IIT-Roorkee, the engineer got inspired by a few poker professionals and took their cue to start playing the game to kill his time initially. Though he played poker, but he never thought of taking it up professionally after college.
He first became an entrepreneur and started a music website called musicfeels.com. The website came in headlines when Gaana.com offered to purchase it and Mayank sold it off and worked with Gaana.com. Later, he quit his job in 2015 and wrote a book on the lessons he learnt from his first start-up. During this time, he visited Goa for a New Year celebrations and won huge money playing poker. This was actually when he fell in love with poker.
Mayank lived in Gurugram and played online poker to make a good sum of money. Dissatisfied with life in Gurgaon, he moved to Goa and took up poker professionally. The proximity to casinos helped him build his skills and he finally took up poker a full-time profession. He says,” Being an engineer from an IIT background, I knew I had the required maths skills to be successful in the game.”
Today, he is one of the prominent players on the Indian poker circuit. He plays both live and online tourneys. Back in 2015, he finished 8th in INR 10,000 + 1,500 No Limit Hold’em – Super Knockout at IPC ( Indian Poker Championship). Recently, he finished 37th in No Limit Hold’em Kick-Off at DPT February 2017.
Manoj Pentakota
The 29-year old Mechanical Engineer, Manoj Pentakota hailing from Vishakhapatnam quit his job with a US-based trading firm in Pune to pursue poker professionally. The decision seems to have paid off now, as he has been doing quite well in his poker career.
Pentakota has tasted considerable success in both online as well as offline tournaments. Like Abhineet Jain, he mostly plays high stakes online PLO cash games, but he is good enough at playing Texas Holdem. Back in February 2017, he won DPT 60K High Roller after defeating a packed 202-entry field to claim his career’s best score of INR 33 lacs. His recent cash in DPT includes his win in No Limit Hold’em – Tag Team at DPT April edition 2017. Like any serious poker aficionado, Pentakota wants also to make it to the WSOP and win the bracelet for India.