Weekly Update: February 11 – 17
Mid-way through into February, the excitement is building up for the much-anticipated National Poker Series (NPS) India 2025 that is hitting the tables in a week! The “Olympics of Indian Poker” is set to roll out on February 16 with an exhaustive schedule of 191 tournaments. There are 573 medals to be won, and 100 CR in guaranteed prizes!

Meanwhile, an intense competition has been brewing up on the 2025 POY Leaderboard race that shot up another batch of fresh contenders this week. Let’s take a look into the exciting battle in further detail.

From Cash Game Tables to Tournaments, Muktar Firoj Pathan’s Ride to the Top!
The 2025 POY Leaderboard now has a new topper- Maharashtra’s Muktar Firoj Pathan ‘Dhakedboy.’ The Latur native has been playing Poker for nearly 3 years and crushing it on the cash game tables.

He plays a select range of tournaments and has a stunning career-cashout ratio of 68%. Over the past week, Pathan has performed even better -delivering a 76% cashout ratio! Starting Monday as the 51st ranked player, Pathan walloped ahead in incredible speed. He participated in 72 events and cashed in 55, the most by any player this week. He made it to 8 final tables and secured over 1.31 LAC in winnings. Taking charge of the POY rankings with a POY Score of 998, he becomes The POY Top Gun!

Pune’s Tarush Gupta ‘Busterr’ climbed one rank up to #4 this week. Gupta is the week’s top scorer with 12.95 LAC in winnings becoming the Mega Crusher of the Week. He entered 36 tournaments, cashing 21 of them, including 7 final tables and one title! Gupta shipped the Summit for an impressive fourth time – winning it twice in two weeks. This time he fired five bullets, outlasting a field of 514 entries to earn a cash prize of 7.50 LAC.

He has also overtaken Bhanu Prakash KC as the top scorer of 2025 with over 35.76 LAC in annual winnings.

Our week’s pick for Poker Supernova is Maharashtra’s Jaikishan Jangid ‘royalking7424.’ Jangid – a six-time NPS India medallist and former The MoneyMaker runner-up, made a 52-rank spin-up into Rank #10 with a POY Score of 990. Since January, Jangid has competed in 130 events and cashed 50 of them, including 9 FTs.

  • Finished third in Summit Lite for 1.42 LAC on Jan 1
  • Won BSS Super Value for 3.75 LAC on Jan 5
  • Winnings since January 1: 11.76 LAC | Weekly Winnings: 27K

A tournament player since June 2022, Thepfulhoutuo Keditsu ‘AvizoKeditsu’ from Arunachal Pradesh stole the thunder as the week’s single-biggest scorer, emerging as the Ace Shot of the Week.

Firing two bullets in Sunday’s BSS SuperStack, Keditsu dominated 1,061-player field to bag a career-best score of 7.96 LAC! Over the week he cashed 11 of 16 events he played, securing 8.05 LAC in winnings.

Take a Look at the POY Top 10 (Feb 11 – 17):

Rank Player Name Tournaments Played ITM Finishes Weekly Winnings POY Score
1 (↑50) Dhakedboy Muktar Firoj Pathan 72 55 1.31 LAC 998 (+51)
2 (~~) msdhoni Rajneesh Thakur 45 24 4.09 LAC 998 (~)
3 (⬇1) Papulasith Parth Shah 27 14 1.94 LAC 996 (~)
4 (↑1) Busterr Tarush Gupta 36 21 12.95 LAC 995 (+7)
5 (↑62) Ifurbadimurdad Rupesh Kumar Rai 18 10 2.86 LAC 993 (+54)
6 (⬇3) Ragemonster Nandan Pugalia 13 8 1.56 LAC 993 (~)
7 (↑8) poker7664 Prince Kumar 21 10 3.20 LAC 992 (+11)
8 (⬇2) poshDrops769243 Harsh Kumar Agarwal 55 37 1.84 LAC 992 (+4)
9 (↑32) Chennaino1 Bhanu Prakash KC 60 37 8.85 LAC 992 (+33)
10 (↑52) Royalking7424 Jaikishan Jangid 14 3 27K 990 (+48)

The following seven factors play a role in determining your POY Score:

  • Return on Investment (ROI): Your profits relative to buy-ins, adjusted for the log value of your average buy-in.
  • In the Money (ITM): The number of times you finish in the money, multiplied by the log value of your average buy-in.
  • Tournaments Played: The total number of tournaments you play in 2025.
  • Winnings: Total prize money won in tournaments throughout the year.
  • Final Tables: Number of times you make the final table, multiplied by the square root of participants in those tournaments.
  • 1st Rank: Number of tournament victories, multiplied by the square root of participants.
  • Biggest Score: Your highest single tournament score of the year.

Stay tuned for more updates as players battle for a spot at the top of the 2025 POY rankings!

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