He came into the general table essentially tied because the shortest stack and had a poker résumé as light as they come, but Zachary Smiley managed to prevail nonetheless at World Poker Tour Maryland Live! The unemployed recent medical school dropout banked $341,536 and a $15,000 seat on the season-ending WPT Tournament of Champions after buying right into a tourney for which he just happened to be on the town for.
Prior to the win, Smiley didn't have a single documented live cash.
Official Final Table Results
| 1 | Zachary Smiley | $356,536* |
| 2 | Ryan Belz | $239,412 |
| 3 | Mario Silvestri | $153,983 |
| 4 | Darren Elias | $113,905 |
| 5 | Ben Zamani | $85,429 |
| 6 | Cate Hall | $68,554 |
*Includes $15,000 WPT Tournament of Champions seat
For the entire action leading up the overall table, take a look at PokerNews' recap here.
According to the live updates, Smiley came into the general table a little short on chips with just 21 big blinds, but he got things started out at the right foot by winning a race with 
against the tens of Ben Zamani for a double just six hands in, finding a queen at the river to outlive. Fellow short stack Cate Hall, trying to become the primary female WPT winner and playing at her third tour final table, also found an early double with jacks against the nines of two-time champ Darren Elias.
Smiley would later grab another double when he got short again, this time with a dominating king-jack against Elias' queen-jack for 12 big blinds.
It ended up taking 73 hands before someone went bust, and Hall was the primary to go, doubtless disappointed she couldn't better her two previous fifth-place finishes that came in 2015. She got her last eight big blinds in with 
against the 
of start-of-day leader Ryan Belz and saw the board miss both players, leaving sixes the winner.
Luck smiled upon Smiley in an enormous spot five-handed. At 50,000/100,000/15,000, he shoved first to behave for 1,855,000. Zamani called off 1,500,000, and Belz put everyone in danger within the big blind.
Belz: 
Smiley: 
Zamani: 
An ace at the flop sent the pot to Smiley, who suddenly had an excessively healthy 53 big blinds while Zamani was sent to payouts, continuing a very good two-year run through which he's racked up over $2 million in cashes along side a global Series of Poker bracelet. He's also got a large lead within the WPT Player of the Year race way to two previous second-place finishes only a few months into the brand new season.
Elias saw his run at joining the exclusive three-time champion ranks result in fourth in a clash of short stacks. He jammed 
only to have Mario Silvestri get up with 
and switch him dead with the nut flush. Silvestri was still below 20 big blinds though, and it didn't take him long to get it in with 
. Smiley held 
though, busting Silvestri when neither player improved.
That gave Smiley the leads going to heads-up play with about 10.3 million to 6.3 million at 60,000/120,000/20,000. What followed was a match between the 2 amateurs that last about an hour. A decisive hand came up when the players saw a 
flop and both checked. Belz checked the turn and Smiley bet 575,000. Belz made it 1.2 million and Smiley called. He then called another barrel of 2.6 million at the 
river.
Smiley's 
was good for a flush and enough to overcome .
Shortly thereafter, it was far and wide when Smiley's fives held up against ace-queen all in preflop.
Image courtesy of WPT
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