Long Live King Dan

Dan Smith is having a ridiculous year on the tournament circuit, with two seven-figure scores, eight final tables and five major titles to his name. At only 23 years old, he holds the lead heading into the last stretch and is the odds-on favorite to become the next name added to the great list of champions to earn the title of Card Player Player of the Year.

Since he was a child in Manalapan, New Jersey, Smith has had an affinity for games, but in 2012 he has transformed from being a well-respected poker professional to one of the monsters of the poker world. With more than $3.5 million in tournament earnings to date this year, Smith has exploded into the upper echelons of poker. With his innate talent, hard work and strong support group of high-stakes friends, the man known as “KingDan23” online is looking to reign for a very long time to come.

From Pawns to ‘King Dan’

It’s common amongst professional poker players to have enjoyed playing games in their youth, but not many can boast the level of experience that Smith had as a scholastic chess player, starting when he was just beginning grade school.

“For Christmas, when I was six, my uncle Paul got me a dino-checkers set,” said Smith with a laugh. “I played that a lot with my sister, and one day I grabbed chess off the shelf. She corrected me, but I said, ‘chess, checkers, who cares? Let’s just play this.’ I think it was the second day of playing chess that I was able to beat my sister, who was five years older. Within two weeks I was able to beat my dad.”

Smith’s parents could tell that their son had a knack for the game, and rooted out a local chess club that met at the library. From there people pointed the way towards tournaments, how to get a coach and how to improve. Smith played in over 200 chess tournaments, continuing into his high school years.

“It used to be that we would play variants of chess between games at tournaments, like speed chess or bughouse. Eventually poker had begun to gain in popularity, and at night at these tournaments there was all of a sudden just poker games everywhere.”
From there, like many people around the country, Smith got the poker bug. He played with his friends throughout high school and grinded play-money games online.

Eventually, he deposited $25 online and was able to run that up while attending college at the University of Maryland, where he met Steve Silverman, known in the online poker world as “Zugwat.” Through Silverman he made other poker friends in Andrew “LuckyChewy” Lichtenberger and Randall “Randallin” Flowers, and quickly found himself immersed in the world of professional online poker. With his background in skill-based strategy games, Smith took to the game quickly.

“I think that playing chess is great preparation for later becoming a professional poker player,” said Smith. “It was really fortunate how that worked out.”

Although he may have been sophisticated strategically early on, he might not have always practiced the best game selection, and at a surprisingly young age was playing in some gigantic cash games.

“When I was 18 years old I would sometimes play games I couldn’t afford. For a while I was short stacking $200-$400 pot-limit Omaha because I thought that some of the players played fundamentally bad, but I really didn’t have the money to be doing that. That was really degenerate, but that was 2007 and if you lost a bunch of money, you could just move down to $5-$10 and just crush everyone.”

Laid Back Look, Hard Core Work

In recent years, Smith and his group of young, successful, poker-playing friends could be seen traveling the globe, winning poker events. With trophies and bracelets and stacks of cash, Smith and company can be seen in numerous winner photos.

With these youthful professionals giving off the air of a gregarious fraternity of savants, it can be easy to assume that being a poker pro is a carefree enterprise to undertake.

“I think that is one of the things that entice people to play tournaments, because it just seems easy. They think ‘Oh, maybe I’ll get lucky and win this,’ but in actuality they are massive underdogs because they just haven’t put in the work.”

Smith’s lighthearted demeanor belies a serious work ethic and dedication to improvement that has been critical to his success. Six years ago, Smith was playing sit’n’gos and decided to apply himself to cash games, starting out in $2-$4 no-limit games online and building to some of the highest stakes games in the world.

“The amount of hours I’ve spent playing poker is incredibly high,” said Smith.
Things have not always come easily either. When the largest online poker sites were shut down in America on April 15th, 2011, Smith was left uncertain of his future as a professional.

“After Black Friday, there was a ton of pressure to do well. The future was uncertain. Also, I was having a terrible run right before Black Friday, and then that happened and it was all incredibly overwhelming,” said Smith. “When you are really concerned about the money when you are playing, it is very, very difficult to play your best.”

Dominating The Tournament Circuit In 2012

Half a year after the shock of Black Friday, Smith embarked on what could be one of the best years of tournament poker in the history of the game. Since January, he has won more than $3.5 million in no-limit hold’em events around the world, capturing five titles, making eight total final tables and giving him the lead in the Card Player Player of the Year race.

Over his whole career leading up to this year, Smith had roughly $1.3 million in tournament winnings, most of which came online.

“In the last year I have done a fair bit of fine-tuning to my game. There were some things I had inaccurate ideas about. I think what I was doing was still a mistake that the overwhelming majority of tournament players make.”

What that exact change was Smith didn’t say, but the retooling garnered results right away when Smith won the Aussie Millions $100,000 challenge in January for $1,060,981.

“It felt really nice. It was my first score out of many tries, as I had historically done poorly in high rollers,” said Smith. “It was a nice way to break that streak, and I mean also it was just a lot of money. I had some friends there, and Melbourne is my favorite city in the world, so it was just really great.”

Smith continued his incredible run in late April at the European Poker Tour Grand Final, where he won three separate €5,000 buy-in no limit hold’em events in the span of roughly a week, cashing for a total of $688,480. As a result of his Monte Carlo hat-trick and his win in the Aussie Millions $100,000 high roller, the American pro moved into the top ten in the overall Card Player Player of the Year standings, having made four final tables and won each time.

“It was really unreal. I bumped into someone after I had won the third tournament and they asked how the last one went. I almost felt sheepish telling them that I’d won, because you are talking to people who might not have had a big score in a while, and I had just won three big ones in a week.”

His fifth title of the year came in the EPT Barcelona €50,000 super high-roller event, topping a tough field of 64 to take home the $1,186,420 first-place prize, his second seven-figure score of the year.

What is truly incredible is that his three final table finishes that did not result in titles still earned him a total of more than $600,000, more than the vast majority of professionals will make over the whole year.

Momentum and ‘The Best Year Ever’

“I used to think that the idea of momentum in tournaments was silly, but I now believe in it,” admits Smith. “I have seen it in so many other players as well; Sam Trickett had a huge run recently, LuckyChewy had a cold run then made two huge final tables in one week, Phil Ivey with his dominance this summer.”

Conceding that he might be biased due to his recent success, Smith does think that winning begets winning in tournament poker.

“I think that when you are winning, you are just better prepared mentally to be making good decisions, and you are more likely to trust your instincts. Your confidence is high, and other people can see that your confidence is high. I’ve started to notice recently that people are playing back at me less then they used to. People are staying out of my way more, which is very advantageous to me.”

Not only does Smith feel confident, but he feels that his winning ways have earned him a notoriety that gives him a psychological advantage as well.

“When I was playing the Partouche Poker Tour main event, there was a guy who said to me, ‘You’re KingDan, right? I love your training videos, it’s nice to meet you and it’s great to play with you.’ I feel like its less likely that someone like that is going to make a move on me. Later on, in the money, a player on my left asks if he could take a picture of me. A few hands later he check-raised me on a flop, and I figured that he wouldn’t ask to take a picture and then bluff me, so I folded and he showed me top pair. That would not have happened a year ago.”

Now, as a result of utilizing his momentum, Smith is in a position to win the prestigious honor of Player of the Year.

“Now that it is this close, I don’t want to look back in the future and have any regrets. You don’t get that many opportunities to win Player of the Year, so it is very tempting to go for it.”

Smith admits that he is planning on increasing the amount of events he will play towards the end of the year beyond what he would typically do.

“I would definitely like to do it. I read on Twitter that some people were talking about whether or not I was having the best year of tournament poker ever. If I have one more big win, I think I am getting up there, and that would just be unbelievably amazing feat.”

A King Needs His Crown

Smith seems very content and comfortable with his career and his life overall now. With the peace of mind that increased success and financial prosperity has given him, he has also found a home base that fit.

“I had been living in Las Vegas, which in retrospect probably wasn’t the best for my mental health. I wasn’t developing as a person, and its tough to develop relationships there. Moving to Toronto, I have an incredibly great group of friends, I’ve gotten really into working out and doing yoga, and overall I just think that I am stronger mentally than I was a year ago by a lot.”

That mental strength has allowed Smith to emerge into the spotlight this year, truly dominating the tournament circuit.

“It is nice that there are never tables now, in no-limit hold’em, where I feel like I am an underdog. That is just an incredible feeling to have.”

With everything falling into place for the 23-year old, the only thing left to do is secure the title of 2012 Card Player Player of the Year, for every king needs their crown. ♠