Gavin Smith given top WPT honor

Poker pro Gavin Smith who won the 2005 World Poker Tour (WPT) Mirage Poker Showdown has been named as the World Poker Tour (WPT) Season 4 Player of the Year. Gavin made three final tables at WPT events this season, earning a huge 2100 WPT points beating some of the world's best players to take this sought after title.

Gavin, a Canadian born player has been playing professionally for 8 years and is represented by Poker Royalty, a full-service poker player marketing and representation agency specializing in the poker industry. "Winning the WPT Player of the Year award is very important to me because it proves to people that Gavin Smith is for real," said Smith. "It's an honor to join previous winners Daniel Negreanu and Erick Lindgren who have both previously been given this title."

"We congratulate and salute Gavin for winning the Player of the Year award," said Chris Porter, director of corporate marketing at Poker Royalty. "This award solidifies Gavin's reputation as one of the elite poker players in the world, and it will undoubtedly increase the marketing opportunities for Gavin as we head into the upcoming World Series of Poker."

According to Porter, "Gavin is one of a few elite poker professionals without a logo sponsorship from an online poker site. We have already fielded several calls from interested parties, and we expect to add an online poker sponsorship to his growing endorsement portfolio in the very near future."