David Williams gained international fame with his runner-up finish in the 2004 World Series of poker main event. Well, he took down the second-largest score of his career this weekend with his $1,530,537 win in the Bellagio’s World Poker Tour Championship.
Williams emerged victorious from a star-studded final table. He said:
“The lineup of name players who I’ve played before calmed me down…I knew what to expect from them because I’d played with all of them before. With new players, I don’t know what’s coming and there’s a lot of pressure with the expectation to win. There was no pressure to win because if I lost, I mean, hey, I lost to a great player…It definitely boosts my confidence. I haven’t had anything big going on for the last couple of years, so it makes me feel like I’m doing things right now. I’ve made a lot of changes. I’m very happy.”
For runner-up Eric Baldwin, the high finish is an acceptable validation for his Player of the Year title. He said:
“It’s a real big deal…With all the success I had last year, none of it was in super high-profile tournaments. I always have friends and family asking, ‘When will I see you on TV?’ and it’ll be nice to finally have an answer for them. I also realize it’s tough to make a name for yourself in poker nowadays because the market’s really saturated with stars. The original generation is still playing. This helps, though, and I picked a great Tournament to finally break through on TV.”
