| CHUMP CHANGE
After winning $3.5 million last May, it's December, what do you do for an encore?
"I wanted to win it.earn it.I didn't want it given to me," David Williams said. He earned it.
On the last few hands of this year's WSOP, David Williams was playing for $1,500,000 a hand against Greg Raymer. The loser only got three and a half million dollars. The winner, five million. Fast forward to a $1,500 + $70 Limit Hold'em tournament. The difference between first and second place is $60,000. That's thousand with a T.
So how does someone play with chips that feel like dimes? L-O-O-S-E-L-Y.
David Williams seemed to have only two ways of betting, checkraise or fold. One of the players David eliminated on Day One of this event told me, "You won't believe the cards he's catching." John Esposito, sitting right behind David, couldn't believe his eyes either. At one point John, who won here two days ago, just put his hand up to cover his mouth it had dropped open so far.
That's the kind of event David Williams was having. Yet at one point, three handed, Williams was in third place before he won the last hand to take the chip lead heads up.
But let's start at the beginning.
FINAL TABLE
Seat/Player/Hometown/Chip Count
Seat 1 Richard Shreckengaust Las Vegas NV 43,500
Seat 2 Sandy Blecker New York NY 49,500
Seat 3 K.C. Hawkins Las Vegas NV 76,500
Seat 4 John Juanda Marina del Rey CA 20,500,br>
Seat 5 David Williams Dallas TX 140,000
Seat 6 John Esposito Las Vegas NV 98,000
Seat 7 Tom Love Marietta OH 81,000
Seat 8 Sam Siharath Las Vegas NV 30,500
Seat 9 Gioi Luong Westminster CA 88,500
The blinds are 1,500 and 3,000 playing 3,000 and 6,000. There are 42 minutes left at this level.
First off, there would be no attempt to set a new last-longer record. On hand 12 a player bit the dust. And it wasn't the shortest beginning stack, John Juanda. When Sam Siharath left in 9th, John and I said, "More points" to each other.
Sam Siharath, like everyone else for two days, couldn't put David Williams on a hand. David was so aggressive with junk that a real hand was treated the same way as gold. Sam lost most of his chips to David when Williams had pocket Kings in the big blind. All-in for 2k soon thereafter with A 7, Sam couldn't protect his hand with any further betting. Sandy Blecker, in the big blind, got to freeroll to the river with 9 5 offsuit. With a five on the flop, Siharath was history.
With Junanda's 8th place finish and 84 'POY' points, there is now less than 400 points seperating John Juanda in second place from Daniel Negreanu in first for the Card Player 'Player of the Year' title. This may seem silly to most of us, as there is no money involved, but trust me on this. These guys want that title BAD. Bragging rights between these two competetive players and good friends is worth a small fortune to each of them. One will not hear the end of it for a whole year from the other. If John's $200,000 Pro Poker Tour win in Foxwoods would have counted, he'd already have the lead. But since it was a freeroll, by POY definition there couldn't be any points given for the win.
Juanda had a shot at finishing higher than 8th, but the Williams' train was in high gear at the time. Running over the table like he was playing with kids, David Williams caught better than Johnny Bench. On hand 24, John Juanda started with the best hand. He raised from the button with A 9 offsuit and got all his chips in against David Williams in the small blind with K J off. No problem. When a King turned, John threw his arms up in frustration. Somewhere Daniel Negreanu threw his arms up in elation. Only 84 points, Daniel must have thought, phew!
It was suck resuck in a battle of the blinds for Sandy Blecker and Richard Shreckengaust (henceforth know as Shreck). First Sandy Blecker caught a Queen on the turn with his K Q and raised Shreck going all-in. Richard had A 8 and an 8 on the flop. Then a second 8 hit the river to send Blecker out in 7th. No one did anything wrong. Perfectly played on both sides.
Two hands later the lovely K.C. Hawkins had her frustratingly short day end. She couldn't win a hand. All her ace high draws went floundering. Hawkins didn't have enough chips left to get John Esposito out of the big blind. Hawkins had another big hand preflop, the A 4 of Hearts. John had 9 7 offsuit. The 9 on the flop proved that poker, like life, isn't fair. But $10 large for 6th place isn't bad either.
Five handed, a funny thing happened--nothing. These guys must have liked each other because no on would leave the table. We played all the way through the 2k/4k blinds into the 3k/6k blinds before there was an exit.
That's not to say there weren't some all-ins, but each time the desperate party found what they needed to stay a little longer.
On hand 57, the 3.5 million dollar man spoke to me. Williams had just called John Esposito all the way down to John's bet on the riiver. David only had King high. The board was A Q 4 5 Q. David Williams said, "Did you catch that, Mike?" "Yes, I did, David," I answered. And here's the proof.
This table was played with sledgehammers. There was at least one checkraise in almost every hand. Yet the main culprit, David Williams, is such a nice, young mult-millionaire there were no hard feelings as he tried to take your baby's new shoe money. On one hand when John Esposito had made an especially good play, David tapped his and John's knuckles together in a small gesture of admiration.
I think this kid has a future in this business. He's obviously very popular with the pros as many came by to check his progress out. That or they wanted to know how much they could count on getting live after the tournament. Fellow Dallas native Robert Williamson III seems quite proud of David's success.
Trivia question: If David hits a triple what would we call it? Williams on III. (Sorry).
I had to vamp all this time because no one was being knocked out until hand 123. Tom Love hated the way things were going. The cards had abandoned him. At nearly 2k a hand, this was fatal. Reraising all-in disgustedly for his case 13k in the big blind with dinner for two, 9 6 off, Tom could only watch John Esposito's small blind 8 3 of Diamonds hit an 8 on the flop.
On hand 136 we reached the final level of the day, 5k/10k. After hours of back and forth, this would be over in under 20 minutes.
First event winner John Esposito couldn't repeat, but gave a valient effort. At the start of the 5k/10k blinds, Gioi Luong was the chip leader after a furious rush. John was second. But that was the last hurrah. John didn't win another hand. All-in with J 9 and second pair on the flop, John's next door neighbor all day long--David Williams in the five seat, had K 8 and top pair on the flop. Espo was 4th.
As the the rush had taken Luong to the chip lead, so it took Richard Schreckengaust there. But as these things usually go, whoever takes out the third place finisher takes over the chip lead. That player was David Williams. On the last hand of the day, the bitterly disappointed Gioi Luong made trip 7's all-in with the 10 7 of Diamonds. Gioi (pronounced Joy) had none.
David Williams, the new human card rack had K 7. The King played and we didn't any longer. Use your imagination as to why, since I can't tell you.
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