Will award ceremonies be able to mainstream poker like any other sport?

Chandan Dilawar is receiving an award on December 1. For what? For playing an excellent game of poker. You heard it right. Attempts to mainstream the idea of poker from a game of chance to a game of logic, has come a long way. So much so that there are award nights to celebrate it.

Dilawar is winning the player of the year at the India Poker Awards (IPC) 2018 by The Spartan Poker, a digital poker platform. He won Rs 25 lakhs in a game of poker with an entry fee of just Rs 1000. Dilawar however, is not an isolated example. There are 69 other awardees being felicitated at the second edition of IPC, the only award ceremony for the game.

Joining the celebrations would be Spartan’s brand ambassador Ranvijay Singh and singer Shibani Dandekar. There would also be a friendly match played between the two. While the second edition of the award has seen more corporate participation, the event is only expected to get bigger every year.

“We have a vision to make the IPC Awards an annual property. Since poker is slowly and gradually being accepted as a popular game and is being mainstreamed too we need events like these to acknowledge not just the achievements of the players but also the potential of the industry,” said Amin Rozani, MD at Spartan Poker.