woog30;411426 wroteSteve, SeektheGrail, played/travelled with Gavin a lot.
I sure did back in the 90s and Gavin was able to start with the roving charity casino $10-$20 limit HoldEm grind and take a shot at a few tournaments at Foxwoods in 1999 and 2000 which he won and caught the eye of Miami John Cernuto and Eric Lindgren and the rest is history with his move to Vegas!
I recall Gavin convincing a bunch of us to signup and deposit some money on one of the original online poker sites "Planet Poker" that only ran limit HoldEm and there was this crazy guy nicknamed "Birdguts" on there that followed the rule of I will see every un-raised flop then evaluate. Turned out it was of course Gavin experimenting even then with a unique playing style!
RIP Gavin Smith!