In an outstanding heads up battle to determine the champion, Sheraz Nasir denied Lu Zhang a shot at making history on the World Poker Tour in winning the first stop of Season XIV’s schedule, the partypoker WPT Canadian Spring Championship, on Wednesday night.
Trevor Delaney held the lead (and 3.19 million chips) as the cards went into the air Wednesday afternoon at the Playground Poker Club in Montreal, but both Nasir (2.685 million) and Zhang (2.5 million) were close behind him. Three players were definitely looking at long odds of getting back into the tournament, but of those three – Gary Lucci (1.25 million), Levi Stevens (765K) and Dylan Wilkerson (740K) – only one had a chance to add to a nice WPT legacy. That was Wilkerson who, if he could dig out of the basement of this final table, would add his second WPT championship in as many seasons to his poker resume.
Alas, that wasn’t to be. On the very first hand of play (and with no small blind on the table due to Pascal Lefrancois’ elimination in the big blind on Tuesday), Stevens and Wilkerson decided to mix it up and both had real hands to joust for the chips. Wilkerson’s pocket nines held a pre-flop edge over Stevens’ A-J off suit, but a Jack high flop switched the lead into Stevens’ hands. Looking to dodge only a nine to put the notch of Wilkerson’s elimination on his belt, Stevens saw a ten and a King complete the board, sending Wilkerson out of the event in sixth place.
After Wilkerson’s abrupt elimination, Zhang went about firing chips at the table. Within slightly more than a dozen hands after Wilkerson exited the WPT stage, Zhang burst past Delaney to take over the chip lead. She would add to that advantage by a huge margin in dismissing Delaney from the tournament when, on a pretty dry 9-4-3-5-K rainbow board, Zhang called an all-in from Delaney and showed him pocket Aces. All Delaney could muster were a small pocket pair of sixes as he picked up the money for his fifth place finish.
Zhang would rule the final table for quite some time, even after doubling up Lucci about 30 hands into play. The turning point of the tournament came, however, on Hand 58, when Nasir and Zhang would clash in a monumental battle.
After Stevens, Lucci and Nasir all called the big blind in front of her, Zhang pushed the price up to 425K and both Stevens and Lucci got out of the way. Nasir stuck around, though, and called to see a K-7-3 flop. Nasir would check-raise Zhang after that flop, only to see Zhang put him all in with her bet. Nasir called and showed an overplayed K-J, while Zhang once again had pocket Aces and the lead. The turn six didn’t change anything, but the river King was a dagger in Zhang’s poker being; the rivered trips gave Nasir the hand and, once the chips were counted, he sat on a 5.49 million chip stack while Zhang dropped to 2.235 million.
This only seemed to anger Zhang a bit as she battled her stack back into contention. She would eliminate Lucci in fourth place when her A-Q outran Lucci’s pocket Jacks on a Queen high board and, on Hand 110, topped Stevens’ K-3 with her K-10 to eliminate him in third place. Moving off to heads-up play, Zhang had narrowed the gap between her and Nasir to only 565K in chips (5.825 million to 5.26 million).
The battle between Nasir and Zhang will go down, at the minimum, as one of the longest heads-up fights in the history of the WPT. Over the span of 115 hands spread out over more than four hours, both players would hold the lead and have their opponent on the ropes, but they couldn’t complete the deal. After finally earning some space between him and Zhang, Nasir called a pre-flop bet from Zhang to see a J-6-3 flop. After both players checked, another trey hit on the turn that prompted a bet from Nasir. Zhang immediately moved all in for 1.75 million and, after a moment’s deliberation, Nasir called with pocket deuces that were surprisingly in the lead against Zhang’s A-2 bluff. When the board failed to pair and no Ace came (river card was a seven), Nasir had captured all the chips and denied Zhang the historic achievement of becoming the first woman to win an open event on the WPT.
1. Sheraz Nasir, $218,297
2. Lu Zhang, $142,224
3. Levi Stevens, $91,299
4. Gary Lucci, $67,632
5. Trevor Delaney, $50,717
6. Dylan Wilkerson, $40,573
After Nasir’s victory, the WPT will enter into a long slumber. Although the WPT has a tournament scheduled for May 11 in Amsterdam, that tournament is not considered a part of the Season XIV schedule. The next official stop at this time for the WPT is in Choctaw, OK, for a $3500 tournament that has a $2 million guaranteed prize pool. That tournament will start on July 31 and be taped for broadcast as a part of the Season XIV schedule on Fox Sports. At this time, there are no other events scheduled for Season XIV, but that will change within the next few weeks.