I'll admit it. I have a bit of a crush on Gavin Smith. Others can drool over Patrik Antonius, but not me. I'll take the mischievous, twinkle in the portly poker player's eyes over the chiseled good looks of the Greek god. But then, this could be practicality speaking. As a middle-aged mother of two, at least with Gavin I have a shot. My husband promises he wouldn't stand in the way. But, as usual, I digress.
I had Gavin as my pick going into this World Series of Poker to take down his first bracelet. When I mentioned that in the ESPN chat room, let's just say no one was jumping on the Gavin band wagon. Of the list of "best who hasn't won" Gavin, they said, was not holding down the top spot. Andy Bloch -- he of the MIT and Harvard Law pedigree -- he was the next to get his first. Or Tom "Durrrr" Dwan, the online phenom who already had a pretty good run. But Gavin? Sure, he may have been WPT player of the year in the past -- but that's not the WSOP.
What people forgot is that Gavin is a savant when it comes to limit hold'em and he's not too shabby in the no limit either. The FullTilt pro knows what he's doing at the table. Like many great players, he has sabotaged himself at times or lost the killer instinct when it counted. But the ability has always been there.
As he said after the win, "I seem to be pretty good at screwing things up. In the past, I sometimes went out and got drunk or hung out. But this year, I decided to come in and try to play my best the whole time." There's never been a question about his raw talent. When Gavin is on, he's on.
He's aggressive, yet so affable that he can easily knock down his opponent's defenses. I remember one of my favorite Gavin moments when, during a WSOP Circuit event, he famously remarked, “I’m sorry for the bad beat that I’m about to give you.” He is disarming in every sense of the word.
So Event #44, $2,500 mixed hold'em, was right up his alley. Of course, not only did he have the smarts and skill to win, but his attitude was good. "The last three days everything just clicked. I played well and things went well and everything clicked at the right time."
Aided by the support of his many friends and fans, and with a determination to not let this opportunity slip away, Gavin took and kept control of the final table. But how could he lose, he had me in his corner. Well, not literally in his corner, I was railing from up above the final table, hanging over the balcony. I told everyone in earshot he'd win and then, risking jinxing it, I shook his hand during one of the breaks, told him I had predicted he'd win a week earlier. He promised to make me look smart.
And he did. The Canadian with the ready smile, who seems to enjoy life just a little bit more than the rest of us, has reason to smile even bigger. He now has his first WSOP bracelet. Congrats Gavin!
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