When you come into the final table of a poker tournament as one of its shorter stacks, most of the time the story doesn’t have a pleasant ending. For Zachary Smiley, however, he found happy days as he pulled himself from the bottom of the standings to the championship of the World Poker Tour’s Main Event stop at Hanover’s Maryland Live! casino.
Smiley, with only 1.255 million chips, had only one person behind him – the dangerous Cate Hall (1.235 million), who also final tabled this event in 2015 – and looked WAY up at the players ahead of him. Becoming a serial final table finisher during the Season XV schedule on the WPT, Benjamin Zamani (2.075 million) was right ahead of Smiley and Mario Silvestri held a similar stack (2.7 million). The two men at the top, Darren Elias (looking for a record-tying third WPT title) and Ryan Belz (with 4.515 million and 4.865 million chips, respectively), were the ones who had the best chance at the title when the cards hit the air on Wednesday afternoon.
It took quite some time before the first elimination occurred and, as expected, it was the short-stacked lady who had to take the long walk to the cash out cage. On Hand 73, Hall found two cards to her liking and pushed over a raise from Belz. Belz seized the opportunity to knock off a strong opponent and made the call, tabling pocket sixes to go up against Hall’s A-9 off suit. The K-10-7-Q flop and turn brought more outs for Hall to go along with her over cards, but the deuce on the river wasn’t one of those outs. After finishing in fifth place in 2015, Hall was unable to pass that in finishing in sixth in 2016.
Once Hall left the felt, the floodgates opened for the tournament. Eleven hands after Hall was ousted, Zamani became the next elimination and Smiley was the benefactor. Smiley in fact moved all in from under the gun and neither of the blinds in Zamani (small) and Belz (big) believed him. When the cards were turned up, it was seen that Smiley was making a bit of a move:
Ryan Belz: Q♠ Q♥
Zachary Smiley: A♦ 10♦
Benjamin Zamani: 8♠ 8♦
While Smiley was way behind, Zamani was the only one at risk in the hand. Thus, Zamani couldn’t have been happy when he saw the A-K-3 flop nail Smiley perfectly. A nine on the turn and a second nine on the river kept Smiley in the lead and garnered him the triple-up while taking out Zamani at the same time in fifth place. Zamani, while probably cursing his luck, had to be pleased in his performance in Maryland, which moved him to the top of the WPT Player of the Year leaderboard.
With his stack rejuvenated, Smiley took over the action. By Hand 100, he had overtaken Belz for the lead and, once he eliminated Silvestri in third place, entered heads up play with 10.305 million chips. Belz, trying to maintain the pace, wasn’t exactly bereft of ammunition as he brought his 6.345 million chips to the fray.
The heads up play was a microcosm of what had happened earlier – two players tentatively shuffling chips back and forth, looking for their opportunity to strike. 20 hands of play actually saw Smiley increase his advantage and another 10 saw Smiley extend it to almost a 4:1 difference. With such a mountain of chips in front of him, Smiley slowly and meticulously whittled the chips from Belz until the final hand ended the tournament.
On Hand 147, Smiley continued with his aggressive tactics in putting out a raise to 300K but, instead of folding as he had previously, Belz suddenly responded with a three bet to 800K. Smiley didn’t want to play post flop, pushing his stack to the center and Belz made the call to put his tournament life on the line. When the cards were up, they basically played themselves; Smiley’s pocket fives were in the lead against Belz’s A-Q off suit and, dodging a scare on the 10-9-6-J flop and turn, Smiley earned the championship when a four came on the river, missing Belz’s potential straight draw.
1. Zachary Smiley, $356,536
2. Ryan Belz, $239,412
3. Mario Silvestri, $153,983
4. Darren Elias, $113,905
5. Benjamin Zamani, $85,429
6. Cate Hall, $68,554
The WPT takes a bit of a break before getting back into the action later this month. Up next on the Season XV schedule is the WPT bestbet Bounty Scramble, set to begin on October 14 in Jacksonville, FL (there are also three WPT National Events taking place between now and then in South Korea, Brussels and Spain). For now, however, the laurels of the WPT are in the hands of a deserving Zachary Smiley.
