Zachary Smiley was all smiles when posing with the WPT Champions Cup on Wednesday night, after winning the WPT Maryland Live! $3,500 Main Event. Smiley had to overcome a tough final table comprised of a two-time WPT champion and several seasoned WPT regulars. And the player did fine, more than fine, as it could be seen.
Smiley collected $356,536 and the tournament trophy for his feat. What is more, his victory last night secured him with a seat into the season-ending WPT Tournament of Champions.
The WPT Maryland Live! $3,500 Main Event kicked off on October 1. The tournament’s official six-handed final table was played on Wednesday and, as already mentioned, was comprised of several well-known players and other, less-known, ones. For instance, Darren Elias was there, vying for his third WPT title. Cate Hall was another well-recognized player in the WPT community. Hall appeared at a second WPT Maryland Live! final table, after finishing 5th in this same tournament last year.
In addition, Benjamin Zamani made a third WPT final table appearance within a ten-week span. Online poker pro Mario Silvestri, Ryan Belz, and Smiley, of course, were the other three players to be seated at yesterday’s final table. They were making their WPT final table debut. And surprising as it might be, they took the top three finishing positions.
Six-handed play kicked off with Belz holding the chip lead. The player had a total of 4,865,000 in chips, good for 81 big blinds. Smiley was the short stack at that point. The final table was off to a slow start, as it took about two hours before a player was eliminated. Eventually, it was Hall who busted in 6th place for $68,554. She was followed by Zamani, who collected $85,429 for his 5th place, and Elias, who scooped a $113,905 payout, for finishing 4th in the event. Silvestri was then eliminated in 3rd place, good for $153,983.
Thus, Smiley and Belz, two players with limited previous WPT experience, were the ones to make it to the heads-up match. Two-handed action started with Smiley holding two times more chips than his final opponent. The two players battled it out for 21 hands. Hand #147 was the last one to be played at the final table.
And here is how it was played. With blinds standing at 75,000/150,000, Smiley raised to 300,000 and Belz re-raised to 800,000. Smiley then moved all in pre-flop and his opponent called, tabling [Ad][Qc]. The soon-to-become-champion turned [5h][5d] over. The board ran out [10c][9c][6d][Jh][4s] to secure Smiley with the tournament’s final pot and the title. Belz received a payout of $239,412 for his runner-up finish.
The WPT Maryland Live! $3,500 Main Event was entered by 554 entries and generated a prize pool of $1,772,800. Payouts were distributed to the top 63 finishers, with min-cashes totaling $6,504.
