Courtesy - Adda52
Most of us dream of playing poker for a living, the 28-year-old Nikita Luther is living that dream! Born into a military family, Nikita is based in Delhi and rose to fame by bagging a gold bracelet at The World Series of Poker in June 2018 in Las Vegas. It was India’s second WSOP bracelet. Aditya Sushant and Nipun Java won the first in the WSOP Tag Team Event in 2017.
Nikita Luther won the WSOP gold bracelet, which many call poker’s “Olympic Gold” Beating 1,032 players and 123,000 entries from over 88 countries. She is now one of the best Indian poker players in present times.
Nikita Luther – Guiseppe Pantaleo pose with WSOP 2018 golden bracelet
It all began seven to eight years ago when Nikita discovered Zynga poker by US-based games company Zynga. Soon, she started spending four to five hours daily playing it. As the whole concept of Zynga poker is collecting points, all her focus was to accumulate more and more points. She was always at the top of the leader board.
After playing for a year or two on Zynga, Nikita was introduced with real money poker at a friend’s birthday party. Initially, she was a bit hesitant and started with a small amount, but later on, she ended up winning the whole pot.
Soon, she began endless research and study on online poker and started playing it full time.
“Poker is not a gender-biased game – it is a mind sport. I feel women have an edge in this game. We are more logical, rational and centred with less ego.”
Nikita has played professional poker for more than two years now. Most recently, she had won a Rs 6.8 lakh prize at the five-day Deltin Poker Tournament, organized by Adda52.com and is flying high with $218,554 in tournament earnings. She is one of the top Indian poker players in present times.
PC @adda52 | Nikita Luther-with the-Deltin Poker Tournament Trophy
In 2016, the Delhi-based startup Adda52.com chose Nikita Luther as their ambassador nationally and internationally. She says the association with Adda52 helped her evolve and improve her game drastically.
Nikita Luther Adda52 pro
Nikita Luther has parted ways with Adda52. She has now signed as the Team Pro for Spartan Poker, a leading digital gaming platform in the country. On June 23, 2020, Spartan Poker made the announcement on social media and confirmed the news and announced Nikita Luther as their latest Team Pro. While Adda52 remained silent about parting ways with Nikita, the signs were always there. Nikita began playing on Spartan Poker since February 2020 and even finished fourth in the Millionaire Legends for Rs. 24.13 Lakhs.
A Delhi University graduate, Nikita Luther is a typical math nerd. She loves solving puzzles, equations, and first worked in marketing before playing poker for a living. Nikita says, being a poker player is as intense as any other job. To be a good poker player, you have to keep studying and training hard for the game.
When she is not playing poker or travelling for a tournament, Nikita’s weekly routine involves playing poker thrice a week and 20 hours of study about the game for the rest of the days.
“For practice, I alternate during the week between playing online and watching master classes by poker professionals and game theorists,” says Nikita Luther.
Nikita-Luther #1 Female Indian poker player (Image: thrillpoker)