World Poker Tour

Chris Smith

Birthday
February 15

Total Winnings
$81,797

Chris Smith and his wife have lived in Las Vegas since 2006. He moved them there from New York, where he worked on Wall Street as a trader and financial consultant for UBS Paine Webber. Although he was not at work on the morning of the 9/11 terrorist attacks he says his poker career can be traced back to that day because business was so slow afterwards that he took a three month leave of absence and never returned.

He started out about seven years ago, playing at Foxwood’s Resort Casino in Connecticut when he was nineteen, driving down there from where he attended school at Boston University. Later he played in cash games at Manhattan’s famous underground Mayfair Club, and decided he liked making his own hours. He doesn’t enjoy walk the of shame out of casino when busting out of a tournament so he left behind his treasured Old Blue Rugby Club in New York and started following tournaments to play in the high stakes cash games.

Smitty feels that being able to read an opponent is more important than the math involved in calculating the odds, but what is critical for a pro is managing risk and bankroll volatility. He enjoys hanging out with his friend (and fellow WPT finalist) Antonio Esfandiari and says that his greatest accomplishment has been winning over $300,000 from Bobby Baldwin in Bobby’s Room at the Bellagio in Vegas. That may soon change - in addition to his finish at the 2007 Turks & Caicos Poker Classic, he’s already cashed in two other WPT events: the 2004 World Poker Challenge and 2007 Caribbean Poker Adventure.