David Williams, found international fame with his runner-up finish in the 2004 World Series of Poker main event, 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. It was considered one of the crown jewels of the poker calendar; the Championship suffered a lot of loss in attendance for the third year running, with just 195 players putting up the $25,000 entry fee. Williams won the final table that was almost as noteworthy for who was missing as it was for who was there.
Deep runs by former WSOP world champions Phil Hellmuth and Scotty Nguyen had onlookers talking about either player joining Carlos Mortensen as the only players with both the WSOP and WPT crowns, but their twin ousters at seventh and eighth, respectively, left the focus on five remaining stars and one relative newcomer. Williams successfully defeated reigning Card Player Magazine Player of the Year Eric Baldwin in a final that lead to the entry of Williams to maintain a vast chip lead throughout. Baldwin’s elimination was the last on a day that saw former WPT winner Shawn Buchanan ($587,906) finish third, 2009 WSOP bracelet winner David Benyamine ($329,228) finish fourth, poker Hall of Farmer and seven-time bracelet winner Billy Baxter finish fifth and Irish online pro John O’Shea finish sixth as the first player eliminated at the final table. For Williams, the victory ended a drought of almost two years in which he failed to score a six-figure win. Among those changes was working with Sam Chauhan, the coach who had worked with Antonio Esfandiari In addition to the money, the victory ensures Williams a continued run in the spotlight that brought him his Bodog sponsorship.
For runner-up Baldwin, the high finish serves as validation for his Player of the Year title. Buchanan’s elimination in third place put an end to the WPT’s most wide-open Player of the Year race to date. While Faraz Jaka (the Player of the Year leader coming into the event) seemed poised to take the title when he held a chip lead with 18 players remaining, his 14th-place ouster left the door open for Buchanan, Hellmuth and Nguyen, each of whom needed to win the tournament to take the title.While it was a triumphant day for Williams, Baldwin and Jaka, this was not a triumphant moment for the WPT or the Bellagio. The 195 registrants were down from 338 a year ago, 545 in 2008 and 639 in 2007. The Bellagio’s unpopular decision to make preliminary tournaments at the annual Five Star World Poker Classic all rebuy events caused a sharp downturn in registration throughout the month. With so little action in-house, there was little incentive for players to attempt a parlay. With the EPT Championship in Monte Carlo and relatively little easy money in the field, there was little incentive for pros to make dual trips across the Atlantic. The Bellagio is already atoning for its miscues.
It was announced that next year’s Five Star series would be moved to May in order to incentivize early arrival for WSOP players, but there are real questions about whether this crown jewel has now been permanently damaged. For Williams, however, the decreased attendance allowed him to topple one of the toughest player-for-player fields of the year. As of 2010, his total live tournament winnings exceed $7,893,000. $4,299,996 of his live winnings have come at the WSOP, and most of the rest has come from the WPT.