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How Bill Smith Beat T. J. Cloutier for the 1985 WSOP Title
He overcame Cloutier’s two-to-one heads-up lead when kings beat nines, then won with pocket threes against ace-three for $700,000.
Bill Smith won the 1985 $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em World Series of Poker Main Event at Binion’s Horseshoe in Las Vegas. He defeated T. J. Cloutier heads-up for the $700,000 first prize, with Berry Johnston finishing third. The surviving tournament summary supports that finish order and those payouts, although it contains conflicting figures of 140 and 141 for the field size in different parts of the same 1985 WSOP record.
The answer: Bill Smith won the 1985 WSOP Main Event
Smith’s victory made him the 1985 world champion and produced the largest cash of his recorded tournament career. It was the only WSOP bracelet he won, but not his only deep Main Event run.
| Category | Result |
|---|---|
| Champion | Bill Smith |
| Runner-up | T. J. Cloutier |
| Third place | Berry Johnston |
| First prize | $700,000 |
| WSOP bracelet earned | One |
Smith’s player record lists one bracelet and three Main Event cashes, all of them top-five finishes. The same record gives his 1985 field as 140 players, one of the two figures found in surviving accounts of his tournament career.
The field discrepancy is best treated as an archival footnote. Most supplied result listings use 140, while at least one retrospective reports 141. Neither figure should be presented as beyond dispute, and the difference does not affect the champion, finishing order or prizes.
An archived Poker Player Press profile also identifies Smith as the 1985 champion, names Cloutier as the opponent he defeated and records the $700,000 prize. The page includes broader opinions and anecdotes that are less securely documented, but its central tournament claims agree with stronger surviving records.
The championship was the centerpiece of an unusually concentrated Main Event résumé. Smith had already finished fifth in 1981 and would finish fifth again in 1986. His three recorded WSOP cashes therefore produced three final tables, three top-five finishes and one world title within six years.
How Smith reversed the heads-up match
The final three players were Smith, Cloutier and Berry Johnston. Johnston was eliminated in third place, leaving Smith and Cloutier to play heads-up for the championship.
A detailed retrospective reports that Smith had 918,000 chips with three players remaining, while neither Johnston nor Cloutier had more than 300,000. The stacks then shifted substantially before Johnston’s elimination; the surviving account does not provide every intervening hand.
By the start of heads-up play, Cloutier had moved in front. The retrospective gives him 952,000 chips to Smith’s 448,000, a lead of slightly more than two to one.
The pivotal confrontation came with pocket kings for Smith against pocket nines for Cloutier. Smith’s kings held. The recap estimates the pot at approximately 1.22 million chips and says Cloutier was reduced to about 178,000, making the hand the decisive reversal of the match. Those chip figures are from a later reconstruction rather than an official hand history, but they form the clearest surviving numerical account of the comeback in the 1985 WSOP recap.
- Johnston finished third.
- Cloutier entered heads-up leading 952,000 to 448,000.
- Smith’s kings beat Cloutier’s nines in the pivotal pot.
- Smith took control of most of the chips in play.
- Cloutier continued with a short stack before Smith closed out the tournament.
No invented betting sequence is needed to explain the reversal. Cloutier began heads-up with more than twice Smith’s stack, but the kings-versus-nines confrontation transferred the lead to Smith. The final hand then converted that advantage into the championship.
The final hand: pocket threes against ace-three
The hole-card matchup is consistently reported: Smith held pocket threes, while Cloutier held ace-three.
The commonly published community cards are:
5-5-9-5-K
On that board, Smith’s two threes combine with the three fives among the community cards to make a full house:
5-5-5-3-3 — fives full of threes
Cloutier cannot make a full house. His best five cards are the three fives on the board, his ace and the king on the board: three of a kind with ace-king kickers. Smith’s full house wins.
| Player | Hole cards | Best five-card hand |
|---|---|---|
| Bill Smith | 3-3 | Fives full of threes |
| T. J. Cloutier | A-3 | Three fives, ace-king kickers |
The description that Smith won with “a pair of threes” refers to his starting cards, not his completed hand. If the published 5-5-9-5-K board is correct, the pocket pair improved to fives full of threes.
The pocket-threes-versus-ace-three matchup is reported more consistently than the board itself. The most precise formulation is that Smith won with pocket threes against ace-three on the commonly reported 5-5-9-5-K board.
That distinction matters in a numbers-led account. Smith’s starting hand was a pocket pair, but the reported board supplied three matching fives. The result was not one pair beating ace high; it was a full house beating three of a kind.
Three Main Event runs, three top-five finishes
Smith’s championship did not stand alone. His recorded WSOP career contains three Main Event results, and each ended with a finish of fifth or better.
| Year | Finish | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1981 | Fifth | $37,500 |
| 1985 | First | $700,000 |
| 1986 | Fifth | $51,300 |
The three payouts total:
$37,500 + $700,000 + $51,300 = $788,800
Smith therefore recorded three Main Event final tables and three top-five finishes in six years. The championship sits between two fifth-place results rather than representing his only appearance near the title.
His 1985 prize accounts for approximately 88.7% of those recorded WSOP earnings:
$700,000 ÷ $788,800 ≈ 0.887
That percentage shows how heavily the title shaped his financial tournament record, but the finishes on either side remain significant. Reaching the top five in three separate Main Events is a broader achievement than the bracelet alone conveys.
Historical databases list only three WSOP cashes for Smith, all from these Main Event runs. That does not prove he had no other poker results. Tournament records from the period may be incomplete, and tournament databases generally do not measure private games or cash-game wins and losses. “Three recorded WSOP cashes” is more accurate than saying he cashed only three times in poker.
The available earnings totals also measure different categories. Smith’s player profile lists $1,055,488 in recorded live tournament earnings, while the three WSOP payouts total $788,800. The larger figure includes recorded tournaments outside the World Series; neither amount should be treated as a complete statement of everything he earned or lost through poker. The database-backed PokerNews profile distinguishes the broader live-tournament figure from his WSOP record.
The difference between the two reported totals is $266,688, representing recorded non-WSOP tournament earnings within that database:
$1,055,488 − $788,800 = $266,688
That calculation is useful for separating Smith’s documented World Series results from his broader recorded tournament career. It does not account for unrecorded events, cash games, expenses, backing arrangements or losses.
The documented biography behind the championship
Bill Smith’s full name was William Paul Smith. He was born on March 14, 1934, in Roswell, New Mexico. He later became associated with Dallas poker circles and was a professional presence on the 1980s WSOP circuit, but that Dallas association should not be confused with his birthplace.
A contemporaneous obituary provides the strongest supplied account of his later life. It identifies Smith as a U.S. Navy veteran of the Korean War and reports that he died at age 61 on February 28, 1996, at Nellis Federal Hospital. It also records his three Main Event payouts—$37,500 in 1981, $700,000 in 1985 and $51,300 in 1986—and gives his World Series earnings as $788,800 at the time of his death. Those details appear in the Las Vegas Sun’s obituary for William Paul Smith.
Later profiles frequently discuss Smith’s drinking, usually through recollections attributed to Cloutier and other players who knew him. Such accounts show how some contemporaries remembered Smith, but they do not establish that alcohol caused financial problems, shortened his career or prevented him from winning additional championships. Those conclusions go beyond the documented tournament record.
The verified record is substantial without relying on those anecdotes. Smith overcame Cloutier’s greater-than-two-to-one heads-up lead, reversed the match when his pocket kings beat pocket nines and won the final hand with pocket threes against ace-three. He collected $700,000 and one bracelet in 1985.
His fifth-place finishes in 1981 and 1986 complete the numerical picture: three Main Event final tables, three top-five finishes and one championship in six years. Some hand and field details remain uncertain in the archives, but Smith’s victory over Cloutier and the tournament record surrounding it are well supported.