David Williams
David Williams got his start in poker as the result of having downtime from another game that he was a champion at, Magic. Williams was a champion Magic player but was suspended from active competition for a year after a deck of cards that he was using was determined to be marked intentionally. Williams would admit to the marked deck, but not to the fact that he purposely did so. It didn’t matter and the suspension was upheld. So Williams turned to tournament poker. He began playing poker online and eventually graduated to high stakes poker. It was while playing online that he earned a satellite to enter the 2004 World Series of Poker.
David Williams made initial news during the 2004 World Series of Poker due to the support of his mother from the rail and his friendship with Marcel Luske. Luske had taken Williams under his wing and helped him to develop his game while they were going through the field together. Luske would come just shy of the final table, but Williams would make the table.
Williams would even use one of Luske’s moves against Josh Arieh. He made a dark check before the flop was dealt out. Arieh moved all-in to Williams, but Williams had flopped a set and he ended up winning the hand and taking a huge chunk of chips off of Arieh. Eventually, Williams wound up heads-up with Greg Raymer and was an underdog to win. He held his won for a while, but on the final hand his full house of deuces full of fours was 2nd best to Raymer’s deuces full of eights and Williams would finish 2nd in the Main Event, but would receive 3.5 Million.
Williams would continue his success at the table later in the year when he finished runner-up to Daniel Negreanu at the WPT Borgata Poker Open for $573,000. He would then win a preliminary event during the World Poker Open later towards the end of 2004.
Williams would have a few decent finishes in tournaments in 2005, but no significant cashes. It wasn’t until making a final table at the Bay 101 WPT event that he would receive his next large cash. He finished 4th at the event and won $280,000.
The 2006 WSOP was another strong year for Williams. He finished 2nd in the 2-7 Lowball event and then took down his first major title, winning the $1,500 7 Card Stud Event. After the 2006 WSOP, Williams has many strong finishes but only two six figure paydays when he won a preliminary event during the 2007 Bellagio Cup and won “Jam Up Week” on Poker After Dark.
To date, Williams has over $6.14 Million in lifetime earnings. This puts him 25th on the all-time money list. At only 28, he still has a long time left in his career to make a run for the top spot all time. Williams has expressed an interest in going back to finish his college degree and possibly go into business. While it is unlikely that he would walk away from a profitable poker career, if he decides to chance are that he will have similar success in his new found path.
Tags: World Poker Tour, World Series of Poker, WPT, WSOP, WSOP Bracelet, WSOP Main Event