Season XIV Champion Profile: Sheraz Nasir - Montreal Spring Poker Championship
Apr 22, 2016
Second chances are few and far between, but PartyPoker WPT Canadian Spring Championship winner Sheraz Nasir got just that when he was able to return to Playground Poker after finishing in 10th place in the fall WPT event in November of 2013. He missed out on the final table in Season XIII, but this time around he made the final six after navigating through a field of 370 entries in the CAD$3,500 buy-in event, determined not to bust before the final table again. Unlike the fall event, the cards fell Nasir’s way on the playdown day and he was able to bag up chips when play concluded, having reached the final table.
While the final table was taken care of, there was still quite a ways to go before the title. Standing in Nasir’s way to the Champions Cup was Champions Club member Dylan Wilkerson, but the WPT South Africa champ came in as the short stack, then exited on the first hand of play. Meanwhile, Lu Zhang jumped out to a huge chip lead after eliminating another big stack. While she played table captain, Nasir held steady, maintaining his chip stack until he found a spot to double through Zhang during four-handed play, spiking a lucky river to stay alive and take a big chip lead.
Zhang wouldn’t go quietly into the night though. As Nasir noted in his winner interview, he felt Zhang was his toughest opponent, and wouldn’t you know it, she was the one he ended up squaring off against heads-up for the title. The heads-up battle was one for the ages. The two began virtually even in chips and, after 110 hands to get from six to two players, it would take another 114 before Nasir could finish off his opponent with pocket deuces to claim the Playground Poker title which eluded him six months prior.
For Nasir, who has been notching cashes all over Canada since May of 2014, the win was an incredible accomplishment at a property he couldn’t speak more highly about, even after an exhausting bout of heads-up play which lasted for several hours.
“I love Montreal,” Nasir said after his victory. “This place is heaven.”
The manna raining from heaven amounted to CAD$237,390, a career high for Nasir. Some of the money went to a family vacation, but he has also been hitting the WPT circuit a bit with one other cash on the season, finishing 125th at WPT Choctaw.
@WPT