Meet The Upswing Poker Pros
Pratyush Buddiga -"Shane Gamble"

Pratyush Buddiga2

Hey guys, my nameโ€™s Pratyush Buddiga and I play under the screenname ofย Shane Gambleย online.

Iโ€™ve always loved competition from the time I was a little kid. I watched the National Spelling Bee on ESPN when I was eight years old and decided I wanted to win. Four years and a lot of hard work later, I did. It was one of the greatest moments of my life and something Iโ€™m still very proud of to this day. I realized that if I set my mind to anything I could accomplish it.

Pratyush Buddiga - Spelling Bee Champion

Next on my list was the AAA Travel Challenge---a โ€œgeography/travelโ€ competition for high schoolers. In my sophomore year of high school, I won the nationals for that too. Competition was in my blood and I hungered for more.

Unfortunately, the rest of high school and early years of college failed to provide me with that spark. Competing over grades or in classrooms wasnโ€™t nearly as exciting as contests where there was an outright winner. Luckily, during my junior year at Duke University, I made a fateful decision that would lead me down a completely new path.

I decided to do the Duke-in-New-York program which sent 20 or so students up to New York City. We would take a few finance classes and then interview/network with Wall Street bankers.The program was a disaster for me in many respects because I didnโ€™t like the atmosphere, missed my Duke friends, and generally wanted to leave as soon as I got there.

The semester was extremely easy academically though as we were supposed to focus on securing our future careers. I had no interest in this and began playing poker instead. I had watched Chris Moneymaker win the Main Event on ESPN (sound familiar?) a few years before that and had dabbled in home games and a bit of online but never took it too seriously. That semester was different. I became obsessed with the game and played nonstop.

I was lucky enough to become friends with a group of poker players that included Pius Heinz, Michael Gagliano, Daniel Strelitz, Brian Yoon, Niall Farrell, Sean Ruane, and a few others all before they became mainstream poker names. They helped take me from a breakeven low stakes player to a good mid/highstakes MTTer.

That was my status through graduation and the following years as I embarked on my first few years as a pro.I was coached by Mike โ€œTimexโ€ McDonald and lived in Waterloo with him in between traveling the world for poker. It was a great experience and I learned a lot. The best moment was winning the 2014 Fallsview Poker Classic $2500 event just down the road in Niagara.

I still had big ambitions and while I had played some very high stakes tournaments, I knew I wasnโ€™t quite good enough to play high rollers regularly. Then something quite fortuitous happened. I was tabled with Doug Polk in the 10k 6max. Doug was being chatty (big surprise right?) and I took the opportunity to grill him about hands at the table like a straight-up fish. It was embarrassing for everyone else at the table Iโ€™m sure but hell, there was no Upswing at the time. How often do you get to pick the mind of someone like Doug?!

After the WSOP ended, I messaged him asking for coaching. He was hesitant because he hadnโ€™t done that for tournaments before but eventually agreed. The next two years were a complete whirlwind as Doug basically taught me an entirely new way to think about poker and apply it to tournaments. It blew my mind---I mean, I didnโ€™t even know what a double delay was! Doug is an amazing coach and his ability to explain things clearly completely revamped my game and helped turn me from a run-of-the-mill MTTer into a high roller regular and climb as high as #2 on the Global Poker Index. It was also extremely lucrative financially with many deep runs and scores capping off with a win in the $25k highroller at EPT Barcelona for $700k.

<small><strong><a href="https://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news/20756-pratyush-buddiga-wins-2016-ept-barcelona-25-000-high-roller">Pratyush Buddiga Wins 2016 EPT Barcelona High Roller</a></strong> (CardPlayer)</small>

Iโ€™ve been extremely fortunate to learn from some of the best guys out there: from Pius and that entire crew to Timex and finally to Doug, the best NLHE HU cash player of all-time. I wouldnโ€™t be where I am today without them.

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