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Ayaz Mahmood made his career’s first World Series of Poker (WSOP) gold bracelet victory by winning the $10,000 buy-in Heads-Up No-Limit Hold’em championship. Mahmood first attended the WSOP in 2003 and this was his fourth appearance in the final. He defea
2010-07-29
Ayaz Mahmood made his career’s first World Series of Poker (WSOP) gold bracelet victory by winning the $10,000 buy-in Heads-Up No-Limit Hold’em championship. Mahmood first attended the WSOP in 2003 and this was his fourth appearance in the final. He defeated Ernst Schmejkal in the final match which was played in the best of three format. Mahmood had an earning of $626,674 as the prize money for winning the event. The event number 35 saw 256 entries with the net prize money being totalled at $2,406,400 and having 32 final paid places. The match was played at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino Las Vegas, Nevada. The details of the way match went by are as under.
On the first day 256 of the best players in poker were up against each other in a contest which required strong nerves and brilliant skills to win. The event had some of the best names from poker. Out of the 256, 64 survived to play the next day. At the end of the next day there were only 8 left to make an attempt for the golden bracelet and the huge winning sum.
The final eight did not have a single former WSOP winner. The winner Mahmood had to win nine straight heads-up matches in total to emerge victorious. Ernst Moritz Schmejkal was the toughest opponent that he faced and also the last one. Though he defeated him 2-0 in the best of three final format, the victory was not easy for him as the match had to be extended to an unscheduled fourth day.
Match 1 saw the two opponents battling it out for more than 6 hours and although in the final two hours Mahmood had the lead, it was not easy for him to take the first match.
Match 2 was played on the fourth day. The final hand was dealt after five hours of play when against Schmejkal’s Ad 6s, Mahmood had Qh Th. This was followed by Ah Td 9c. When the final two cards were Jd Ks, Mahmood managed to make a straight and win the second match. Thus he won the best of three finals by 2-0.
The runners up won $386,900 while the two semi-finalists, Jason Somerville from New York and Alexander Kostritsyn from Moscow each won $ 219,969. Both of them had won 6 of their 7 matches. The remaining players in the final eight won $94,956 each. The finishers were Vanessa Rousso from USA, Faraz Jaka from USA, Ludovic Lacay from England and Thang Pham from USA. The defending champion of last year Leo Wolpert failed to cash in this year.
Ayaz Mahmood is a Bangladeshi born 38 year old who has been living in the US since he was 14. He is in fact the first Bangladeshi born WSOP champion. Before turning to playing poker full time in 2004, Mahmood owned a furniture store in Houston.
He was quite excited on winning the title and said that he had waited ten years for this. He said that it was not an easy task to win the title against strong players and was happy on being able to do so. He said that now he would like to have a shot at the main event.
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