Season 4 of the World Poker Tour kicked off in high style with a type of poker called Mirage Poker Showdown. The Mirage Poker Showdown took place between May 23 and May 26 2005. Entry fee for the tournament was fixed at $200 and 317 people participated in the tournament.

In this showdown, up for grabs was a prize pool amounting to about $3,074,900. On top of this, the winner was also presented with a guaranteed $25,000 seat at the poker championships along with a payday worth one million. The Mirage Poker Showdown was played on the poker level at the Mirage Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas and lasted for four days.

The end result was truly befitting the location of the poker game. Four highly professional poker players emerged tops in the final table, crushing any hopes of victories that the amateur players might have had.

The final table players included Canadian Gavin Smith in Seat 1, pro Ted Forrest in Seat 2, Chris Bell in Seat 3, Kido Pham in Seat 4, Eugene Todd in Seat 5 and lastly, Mark Ellerbe in Seat 5.

The amateur players, Ellerbe and Todd had it tough in the beginning of the game when the professionals such as Todd and Bell rose up high. However, there were several flops along the way. For instance, Ellerbe had chosen the wrong time to make his move and therefore emerging last with $106,729.

Smith fought his way through the game and ended up tops in the game. He is only the 6th Canadian to have made it to a World Poker Tournament of this stature and the first to ever win the tournament title. He ended the game with a handsome sum of $1,128,278. Smith first came to be known when he won tournaments in no limit Texas hold’em and seven card stud in the 1999 and 2000 World Poker Finals in Foxwoods Resort Casino.

Forrest also performed well by coming in second. He bagged a handsome amount of $579,386 for his performance.

Chris Bell won $289,693 while Pham, Eugene and Ellerbe won $182,964, $137,223 $106,729 respectively.

- Thomas Hardy