Amero-Indian Ayaz Mahmood Wins WSOP Event 35: $10,000 Heads-Up Championship
June 23, 2010 9:06 amAyaz Mahmood has just landed the biggest score of his poker career, after winning a WSOP bracelet in the $10,000 Heads-Up Championship event, worth $625,682.
The 38 year-old Houston, Texas resident was originally born in Bangladesh, on the Indian sub-continent and 8 years ago decided on a change of careers when, as he explains; “I lost interest in selling furniture, and I said alright, lets try to become a professional poker player.”
Ayaz Mahmood has been making a successful living out of the game ever since, but winning a bracelet at WSOP Event #35 has assured him of poker glory, as well as taking his live tournament career cashes to an impressive $1,324,575.
The $10,000 Heads-Up Championship event was capped at 256 of the toughest players in the world, including Phil Ivey, Vanessa Rousso, Scott Clements, Bertrand Grospellier, and Phil Gordon. On his own personal route to WSOP victory, Ayaz Mahmood had to win nine straight matches against such players as Brian Rast, Jim Collopy, Faraz Jaka, Jason Somerville and Ernst Schmejkal in the final in order to secure his famous win.
Ayaz Mahmood is known more as a Pot limit Omaha specialist and only decided to play in the No Limit Hold’em event after being struck with an idea.
“In the last year, year and a half I’ve been playing a lot of heads-up PLO. I’ve been challenging some players to play with, me, and I’ve been very successful. So this year, I decided to take a chance, let me take a chance in heads-up no limit holdem, lets see how good I am,” said Mahmood.
It turned out to be a pretty successful decision, although he surely had to fight hard for his win. The final heads-up match against the Ernst Schmejkal took 11 hours to complete over two days, with the German eventually walking away runner-up for a $386,636 pay-day.
As to Ayaz Mahmood’s poker plans following his WSOP win, he good humoured replied: “My next goal is to win a main event, and hopefully, in 3-4 years, I can beat Phil Hellmuth with 12 bracelets.”