Played some -EV table game with him at Choctaw with him for hours years ago. He was a guys guy and hilarious beyond words and super bright. Like many here, I watched all his televised play as well. He was a natural. Peace out Gavin. Hope there is a good steak house up there.

I can confirm all of these things about Gavin being hilarious and fun as hell to play with are true.

This is a sad day for poker.

A few posters around here think they need to bring up assumed Gavin Smith alcohol issues. This may or may not be true at present day. This thread is not going to allow these kind of posts whether they are true or not.



RIP Gavin. A super-friendly and likeable Canadian boy who was always good for the game.

Very sad day!

Gavin was a great dude. I knew him personally and over the years we had become friends. Just talked to him on the phone last week. He was flying up to the Philadelphia area to be filmed and commentate for a poker pilot show I have been working on. Great guy.

I originally reached out to him in 2013 as I was looking for a poker pro to give a quote for a low budget independent movie(Deadly Gamble) I made on only a $10k budget. Supringingly he got back to me and gave me a quote as well, he even posted about the movie on his twitter account. I thought it was pretty cool he would do that for someone he didn’t know. His heart was in all the right places. RIP buddy.

Sad news. Always enjoyed listening to him on The Circuit, Pokerwire, and Pokerroad.

+1, he was really funny

RIP, far too young

It is a bit of shock but I know from personal experience that if you burn your candle at both ends you can be an old late 40's.

I have a buddy who is roughly the same age as Gavin and he is like the Wiley Coyote with the tractor trailer heading towards him. He has blood pressure issues and is pre-diabetic and has impaired kidney functions. All from being a party animal when it comes eating and not sleeping properly.

Anyway when poker was peaking he was one of the characters of poker I wish I could have knocked a few back with Gavin, RIP and have one on me Gavin....

When I made my first trip to the WSOP in 2013 Gavin was the first player I reconized...i must have railed his tournament table for 30 mins..real funny guy.

RIP

Thanks for this. Nolan really captures the essence of a truly unique man here. The best eulogy I've ever read. Thanks Nolan.

Gavin somehow knew this life was all an illusion and he was just going to frolic through it.

My first close up encounter with him was in the Seven Card Stud event at the WSOP maybe seven or eight years ago. I had never played with anyone quite like him at the WSOP. He chattered away hand after hand, talking about anything that crossed his mind, most of it not having anything to do with the task at hand. I found him irritating at first and amusing after that. No question that he lightened the mood for everyone at the table.

At some point he lost a big pot and rather than lament his loss, he proclaimed himself to be the best stud player in the world. He looked around the room and said, "There's not one of these champions who will play me heads up for $20,000!" Toto Leonidas was sitting to my right and took offense at this remark and offered to play him himself. He told Gavin to put his money up if he was serious. With that Gavin reached in his pocket and pulled out a huge wad of bills all wrapped neatly with a rubber band, and plunked it down on the table. That seemed to stifle the conversation and Toto toned down a little and the game continued.

On the very next hand, Gavin stopped the dealer and said he had only one down card. He looked under the edge of the table, on the floor and even picked up his stack of bills and looked under it. Sure enough he had only one down card. Right or wrong, the dealer now delivered a second down card to Gavin and the game continued. No one thought anything more about it, until maybe twenty minutes later when Gavin busted out of the tournament and got up to leave. As he picked up his stack of bills he felt something funny and lo and behold he pulled the nine of clubs out of the stack. It had lodged perfectly in the wad of bills. We had been playing with a short deck all this time!

Of course, Gavin just laughed and flipped the card to the dealer and walked away. The rest of us sat there stunned, not sure what to do. Someone called a floor man over and asked him what we should do. He just shook his head and said there was nothing we could do now except keep playing, and we did.

A couple of years later I ran into Gavin and reminded him about the incident. He looked at me with a quizzical look on his face. He had no idea what I was talking about.

rest in peace, Gavin
poker is poorer without
flatcalls and greyhounds

Nolan's eulogy article pretty much highlights the issues that the mods don't want discussed here.

It's a matter of tone though, it's one thing to remember fond times in a jovial way even if alcohol was a central part of it, it's another thing to maliciously talk about such lifestyle, which some posters were doing.

Many of the memories and stories of Gavin that are told here are told positively, even if "partying" was always the backdrop of the story.

Aww, this is sad news.
He was so fun to watch and seemed so down to earth.

RIP

Sad news indeed he will be missed.

I don't like gofundme fundraisers in general sometimes it feels almost like you don't have to take responsibility for your own family because someone else will cough up the cash, he was a young man and it is sad but in a game like poker where people lose sight of moneys value and often lose or win a fortune at the flip of a coin it doesn't sit right with me people looking for charity in this case, maybe this is the time for others too see how fragile life is and make sure they cover anyone they leave behind

GTFO with this BS.

One of the most entertaining players of this era. Poker has become so robotic and Gavin kept it real. Gonna be missed !!

How much are they supposed to give? I saw $100 from the few names I recognized, which seems about right. Jennifer Tilly gave $300. Big name in poker, rarely means they actually have big money.

RIP. I remember playing at a day 1 table with Gavin back in 2004 or thereabouts (think it was in Aruba). I had no idea who he was at the time. Yet, I always remembered his name because I spent the whole day laughing. It was characters like him that made poker so much fun back in the day.

He will be missed.

Seems right to me.

Played with him in tunica the year he won, him and Men the master, had the whole table rolling with their antics. What I remember the most was how well he took care of the wait staff. A special thanks though for Josh A who set up a gofund me page for Gavin’s two children.

Him being totally $hit faced on Poker After Dark was Great! Wanted to post that and saw sum1 posted the vid already. Kinda like Bigdog on Twitch getting wasted, funny as F.

RIP

Got to play some poker and drink some greyhounds with Gavin back in the day. He will be missed.

I remember playing in a small-ball tournament at Binions with him once, where he would tell me I sucked after every hand I played, win or lose. It got to the point where if I played a hand, we'd all turn to to Gavin for his commentary, but he'd say, "just wait until the end." After the hand, he'd day, "nope you still suck." And we'd clink glasses. Cracked me up like no other.

And now I go a looking for the PRR dumpster fire episode in 2007 after he got second in the 1500 PL holdem WSOP event.

Sad news. Thanks for the fun times watching poker Gavin. RIP.