Poker Hand Matchup: Matt Beinner vs. Dylan Smith
Matthew Beinner	Win Pre-Flop	Win Post-Flop	Win Post-Turn
Starting Stack: 38,900,000	23.66 %	57.27 %	75.0 %
Dylan Smith	Win Pre-Flop	Win Post-Flop	Win Post-Turn
Starting Stack: 32,800,000	70.72 %	40.3 %	25.0 %	Winner!

Posted On: Dec 17, 2024

Outcome

Preflop, with two players remaining and blinds of 300,000-600,000 with a big blind ante of 600,000, Matthew Beinner raised to 1,800,000 from the button. Dylan Smith called from the big blind. On the flop Smith checked, and Beinner bet 1,600,000. Smith called. On the turn Smith checked, and Beinner bet 6,300,000. Smith called. On the river Smith bet 600,000, and Beinner called.

Analysis

This hand swung the balance of power during the final heads-up battle for the title. The final two players both picked up powerful starting hands, with Smith’s K-Q having Beinner’s K-J dominated preflop. The equity lead changed hands when Beinner spiked top pair, but Smith still had plenty of equity with an open-ended straight draw and a live overcard. Smith check-called a continuation bet of 38 percent pot with his draw and the turn brought the K to improve both players. Smith checked a second time despite nailing top pair and Beinner sized up, firing 6,300,000 into a pot that already sat at 7,400,000 with his kings and jacks. “His hand is great. You don’t need to raise it, you are not going to get called by worse, but you have a big draw and you have a great bluff catcher… I would expect Dylan to call here,” said WPT champion Matt Waxman, who was commentating on the final table livestream. Smith did indeed flat call and the river improved him to a king-high straight. Now, he had to decide how to best extract value. He opted to lead out for a min-bet, perhaps hoping to induce a raise from Beinner. The tiny bet (3 percent of the pot) was instead met with a flat call from Beinner. We will never know if Smith could have received a call had he gone for a larger bet size on the river, but the pot was enough to give him the chip lead. Smith went on to close out the win. He earned $662,200 as the champion, while Beinner took home $440,000 as the runner-up.