Chandrasekhar Billavara, a B.A. Computer Science graduate from India, started playing poker in 2005. He owns a coffee shop with two other partners in San Francisco. They compete directly with Starbucks Coffee Company, and they seem to be doing fine. It was with the help of his friends that Chandrasekhar Billavara learned the basic strategies of poker.
Chandrasekhar Billavara, nicknamed Sako, went cock-a-hoop on June 30, 2007, when he played in the 38th Annual World Series of Poker (WSOP) Event 49 No-Limit Hold'em held at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino. He outlasted 3151 players, finished first in heads-up confrontation with Taylor Douglas, and bagged a huge booty of $722, 914. When heads-up play started, he had 5,465,000 in front of him, and his opponent, Douglas, entered the final table with 4,000,000. Douglas, a poker player from Athens, GA, United States, lost a couple of quick pots. Jh-6h-2s cards spread by the dealer and an Ah on the turn pushed Taylor Douglas to second place ($467,101), and let Chandrasekhar Billavara win the fourth largest live poker tournament in the history.
Later in the year, on November 10th, Chandrasekhar Billavara finished 31st and walked away with $1,280 in Event 2 No-Limit Hold'em at the Harveys Casino Poker Tournaments WSOP Circuit. He has earned about $720,000 through tournament winnings, as of 2008.
When he is out of poker, Chandrasekhar Billavara is busy managing his coffee shop. In fact, he is content playing home games and does not play online games or at casinos. Interestingly, Chandrasekhar Billavara values the bracelet more than the money that he had earned.