If you've been a poker fan for a few years now, the chances are you'll remember David Williams' brilliant display at the WSOP main event in 2004. Williams finished as the runner up on that day to poker legend Greg Raymer and banked a chunky $3,500,000 for his efforts.
Now the pro' from Dallas, Texas, has finally gone one better and bagged himself a WPT title after several near misses down the years.
The WPT Championship event is the flagship tournament on the World Poker Tour. Despite that, only 195 took part in the event last week leaving organisers with a headache over how to stretch out such a long schedule with so few players. The $25,000 buy in and volcanic ash clouds were cited as reasons for the poor attendance, but WPT fields have been dwindling for a while now as newer, more popular, tours have emerged.
Player numbers may have been low but the poker was still high quality. The likes of Scotty Nguyen, Phil Hellmuth, The Devilfish and David Benyamine all ran deep in the tournament but none could match Williams, who was in sparkling form once again.
Eric Baldwin ran Williams all the way but by the time the heads up stage began he was a big underdog, with a 4:1 chip disadvantage to the eventual winner. Williams didn't take long to defeat Baldwin with his set of Deuces enough to beat the A-5 of his opponent.
The top eight players and their cashes from the WPT Championship were:
1st - David Williams $1,530,537
2nd - Eric Baldwin $1,034,715
3rd - Shawn Buchanan $587,906
4th - David Benyamine $329,228
5th - Bill Baxter $246,921
6th - John O'Shea $199,888
7th - Phil Hellmuth Jr $152,856
8th - Scotty Nguyen $105,823
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