Amit Makhija – amak316

With an appearance at a televised WSOP Final Table, a runner-up finish in a WPT Event and an outright victory in FTOPS X, Amit Makhija is fast becoming one of the most recognisable online tournament stars in the world.

To say ‘amak316’ has had a sick 12 months would be an understatement, with a string of stunning MTT cashes online and over $900,000 earned from live tournaments alone. But Makhija was well known to internet connoisseurs long before this sick run as one of the toughest headsup sit and go players in the world.
Playing the highest stakes headsup games on Full Tilt, the Wisconsin native boasts prizes of over $1.3million in this format alone, with over $600,000 of this pure profit (this is from over 4,800 sng’s with an average stake of well over $650). It is perhaps not surprising, then, that he has turned these aggressive skills to the MTT scene with brutal effect in the last 12 months.

He has a special affiliation with the PokerStars $100 ReBuys (known as one of the toughest fields anywhere), having won this event twice in two months (for over $67,000) back in March and according to our estimations he has final tabled the tournament on an astonishing 19 occasions! He has branched out his Stars resume recently and in August came runner in the $200 HeadsUp event for $11,362 and also cashed in the ‘High Roller’ $10,000 WCOOP Event, coming in 38th for $17,655.

He also boasts second place finishes in the Ultimate Bet $200k GTD ($27,000) & Absolute Poker $100k GTD ($23,400) in 2008 but Full Tilt is where he has really invested his sng winnings to good effect. In 2 years on the site, he has total prizes of over $2million and before November’s FTOPS victory had taken down the $55k GTD ($21,000), $100 ReBuy ($19,300) and finished runnerup in the $65k GTD ($12,601) – all when MTT’s weren’t even his primary game. But of course the FTOPS victory eclipses all of these – the 6Max tournament seemingly suiting his game down to the ground as he came through the 500 runner field with ease (being near the chip lead from a long way before the final table) to take down the monster score of $550,000.

After graduating with a degree in Finance & Economics back in April, Makhija told Poker News Daily that “When you start playing tournament poker, you dream about playing under the lights and cameras of the WPT and WSOP.” Seven months on and he has experienced both in just his first year of live tournaments! He first made a name for himself in April’s EPT Grand Final, where he put together a good run to bust in 20th for $73,263. But Event #1 of the 2008 WSOP would prove to be his most wellknown tournament to date, as he battled with the likes of Patrik Antonius, Mike Sowers & Nenad Medic on a stacked televised final table of the $10,000 PLH. Though he was disappointed not to take it down, a 5th place finish with $198,528 for his troubles is not bad going for his first World Series cash.

You can check out his elimination below:

You would think such success in just a year would be enough for a headsup online specialist, but Makhija hopped over to LA in August to play in the WPT Legends of Poker Event: and finished 2nd for the biggest cash of his career, a cool $563,320. And all this before his FTOPS win!

There probably isn’t another player in the world who can boast 6figure profits in headsup sngs, MTTs & live tournaments in the space of just 12 months: ‘amak316’ can seemingly compete with the best in any form of the game he turns his hand to.