Every now and then, poker gets itself worked up like a possum in a trash can, and the whole internet starts yelling before anybody has finished reading the rules or the room.
That’s pretty much what happened after Justin Smith won the WSOP Colossus for $550,000 and a bracelet. The headline version sounded spicy enough: Did the wrong person win? Was there a mistake? Did somebody award half a million dollars and poker immortality to a man who should’ve been standing in the payout line with everybody else?
The internet found itself a nothing burger
Well…no.
What we had here was a classic Las Vegas nothing burger.
Smith’s win was weird, sure. He was down to four big blinds four-handed, which in poker terms means you’re not so much alive in the tournament as you are haunting it.
Then he doubled, surged, knocked out Yuefan Wang, knocked out Victor Chong, and beat Myles German on the very first hand of heads-up play.
Wild does not mean wrong
That is not usually how a final table unfolds. That’s how a squirrel crosses the highway.
Yes, it looked strange from a distance. It made people squint.
But strange is not the same thing as wrong. Poker tournaments can be messy,. This one had a wild ending, but not a stolen one.
Justin Smith won the Colossus. The bracelet ended up on right wrist.
