The good news keeps flooding in for Full Tilt Poker, with two more of the site’s FTP Red Pros winning bracelets at the World Series of Poker over the last week. Scott Montgomery and Gavin Smith won the $1,000 No Limit Hold’Em and the $2,500 Mixed Hold’Em events respectively, each player securing his first ever WSOP bracelet win.
Looking into the two Canadian-born poker pros shows them to have a remarkable number of similarities. As well as both being Canadian natives, the two Red Pros also have a history of near misses as far as bracelet shots are concerned and have both amassed over $4 million in career tournament winnings before finally shipping their first bracelets in this 2010 World Series of Poker.
Scott Montgomery is perhaps most well-known for his impressive fifth-place in the 2008 WSOP Main Event, as a member of the inaugural November Nine. While that placing earned him his largest tournament cash yet, it was by no means his only close run for a bracelet. “I’ve had like 10 final tables, and I have never had anything in the top three. I keep getting fifth and whatever. I started to think I wasn’t that good at final tables,” Montgomery explained after his victory, going on to add happily, “It’s good to finally get here.”
In a long tournament to mirror his long march towards this bracelet, Montgomery outlasted the entirety of the 3,102 player field to snag the win. After eliminating Adam Richardson in third place, he moved into the heads-up battle for first with the dominant chip stack, which he quickly put to good use, furthering his lead. Eventually there was nothing for runner-up Michael Carlson to do but push all in with K7, and when Montgomery flipped his A7 he knew he was in good shape. The board ran out 94T63 giving Ace-high the win, and Montgomery walked away with his long-awaited first bracelet and $481,760 in prize money.
Gavin Smith is also no stranger to the bittersweet feeling of going deep in a tournament, but missing out on the elusive first place. In the $1,500 Pot Limit Hold’Em event at the 2007 WSOP, Gavin Smith made it all the way to heads-up play before finishing in second place. In 2008 he went on to repeat this placing at the Niagra Falls stop of the World Poker Tour, and was widely considered to be one of the best players still missing a bracelet before his win this week.
As the final table was reached, Smith was almost tied for the chip lead and looking in a strong position. However, as they say, it’s never easy, and Smith went on a roller coaster ride at that final table, dropping at one point all the way down to least in chips before finally fighting through to enter heads-up play with a fairly comparable stack to his opponent Danny Hanawa. The final battle was a long one, but as the chips went in preflop and Smith saw that his AQ suited was up against T8 offsuit and that the AK2JJ board was of no help to his opponent, Smith’s long heads-up match and longer wait for a bracelet were both over. While the prestige of his first gold bracelet is surely exciting, he also won’t be complaining about the $268,238 prize money that comes with the title.
After his tournament success, Scott Montgomery expressed his pride in winning, but also modestly declared that the chances of him winning a second bracelet were quite slim. “I put my odds of winning another bracelet in the next year at 10-to-1.” Hopefully he didn’t get any action on that claim, because at the time of writing Montgomery was deep in yet another event and looked set to become the second double-bracelet winner of this year’s series, following Frank Kasella.
Whatever the future holds for these players, both immediate and long-term, this 2010 World Series of Poker is one that neither will ever forget, and the long-deserved bracelets are a very fitting icing on the cake of their successful poker careers.
Official final table results for $1,000 No Limit Hold’Em:
1st: Scott Montgomery – $481,760
2nd: Mick Carlson- $297,996
3rd: Adam Richardson – $210,892
4th: Daniel Fuhs – $152,655
5th: Sebastien Roy – $111,783
6th: John Dolan – $82,804
7th: Peter Dufek – $62,033
8th: Tim Beenan – $46,985
9th: Michael Michnik – $35,986
Official final table results for $2,500 Mixed Hold’Em:
1st: Gavin Smith – $268,238
2nd: Danny Hannawa – $166,005
3rd: Timothy Finne – $110,324
4th: Michael Michnik – $81,871
5th: Jamie Rosen – $61,441
6th: Jarred Solomon – $46,562
7th: Daniel Idema – $35,601
8th: Dwyte Pilgrim – $27,438
9th: Mike Santoro – $21,304