June 10-16
Justin Smith's previous best finish in the WSOP Colossus.
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1ST
Justin Smith
$550,000
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2ND
Myles German
$367,000
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3RD
Victor Chong
$279,006
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4TH
Yuefan Wang
$212,000
-
5TH
Jose Orozco-Gomez
$163,000
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6TH
Karabet Keshishyan
$125,000
-
7TH
Andrew Sanchez
$98,000
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2ND
Eric Baldwin
$76,000
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9TH
Min Ji
$60,171
Never a doubt.
Not even four-handed, when Justin Smith was down to just four big blinds in the $500 Colossus against three opponents with 16 each.
"I actually thought I was going win it before that," Smith told us. "I was chip leader for a while and then I took some hits."
It was not a final table where you could afford to take a lot of hits. Stacks were shallow, and pay jumps were big. It was also the end of a giant tournament at the WSOP, and the final four players had outlasted more than 16,000 other entries to get there.
New king of Colossus
Smith is Quality Engineer in the field of aviation, an industry that dominates his home state of Washington. He lives in Yakima, which sits about an hour southeast of Mount Rainier, and he cut his teeth playing poker in the nearby casino when he was 18.
"I saw [him] playing poker one day at the casino," Smith said, gesturing to a nearby friend on the rail. "So I started playing."
Smith notched his first Hendon Mob entry in 2010 and his first win in 2013. His first WSOP cash was a 943rd place finish in the 2016 Millionaire Maker, and he wouldn't cash again until 2024 when he finished 1,605th in the $300 Gladiator.
Smith's only two other WSOP cashes were in this Colossus tournament, where his previous best was 799th place in 2024.
Don't blink
Now, back in Vegas and 795 spots deeper than he had ever been, Smith patiently waited for his spot with just four big blinds. He settled on 
and Yuefan Wang called with 
. Things were looking pretty good before the flop was 
.
With one foot in the poker grave, Smith suffered through a turn before the paydirt 
dropped on the river.
It was a big double with so few chips on the table. Smith and Wang swapped spots on the leaderboard, only to butt heads again just a few moments later. This time it was Wang with ace-queen and Smith with queen-jack, but a runout of 
spiked another jack on the river for Smith and Wang was the one collecting fourth-place money.
The sequences of events meant that Smith was the new chip leader, while Victor Chong and Myles German sat there watching. Smith would eject Chong a short time later and then clean up German on the first-hand of heads-up play for a whiplash-inducing victory.
So, what now? The Washington-native could do just about anything after his first WSOP bracelet and the top prize of $550,000, nearly ten times his career earnings before Tuesday.
"I'm supposed to head back home tomorrow," Smith said. He shrugged off a "maybe" when asked about a WSOP Main Event appearance.
It sounded like a yes.
Images courtesy of World Series of Poker.
