Three barrels giving off an Asian aroma including a chess grandmaster promoting poker as a game of skill in India, Varun Gupta taking down a title in Macau, and Japan getting in on the live tournament act.

We are solving the perception problem. 

Those were the words of India’s Poker Sports League’s (PSL) co-founder Pranav Bagai when we spoke recently about his vision for the future of poker in his country.

I was interested in learning how PSL was going to shoot down their competitors: Match Indian Poker League (MIPL) and Global Poker League (GPL) India, when I learned that India’s rulers are the primary enemy, and MIPL and GPL are more like allies.