David Williams' Blog

Rentrab asks:

thanks for the insight. in the events with the smaller buy ins are you looking to gamble more early and double up or are you just playing very fast with your premium hands? is it a combination of both? what im asking is...is accumulating chips important enough to gamble with hands in which youre not a big favorite or even a slight dog? thanks.

In the smaller buy in tournaments, I am definitely trying to accumulate many chips early. I am willing to gamble and take the worst of it, but only a small bit. I won’t put the money in when it’s obvious I am a big dog or could be, but sometimes your read can be wrong. I only feel gambling like this is necessary in the 2k buy in and smaller NL/PL events. Once you get to 4k, with the structures at the WSOP, you have plenty of time to make moves and get chips without much risk.

Sciolist says:

"If I reraise him to 4k he seems like he would have called. Then I go broke on the T high flop."

Isn't that the wrong way to look at it when analysing how you play? Decisions are what count, afterall, not what actually happened in the hand.

I was only stating what would have happened if I made the alternative play. I didn’t say that I wish I had made a different move because of this, I was just making an observation.

Anonymous asks:

Hey David, I got your official website from Daniel Negreanu. Could you tell me what poker books you have read and how you got so good at the game of poker? Thanks.

I haven’t really read many poker books. I read the Sklansky books when I first began to get a solid foundation, but most of it made logical sense to me and I just skimmed it. I don’t think poker books make you good at poker (a lot of top pros agree with me, including DN I think). The most important tool for improvement is putting hours in, and analyzing your session. Thinking is they key to getting better. It sounds obvious, but its odd how many people just play the same way over and over, almost on auto-pilot, and don’t think about doing things differently.

Fletcher asks:

David, miss Texas yet?
Keep it up, we miss you and always are cheering that you do great!
Still hoping you'll come down for my measly 5k tournamet but I know that's a longshot.

I don’t really miss Texas yet. I haven’t been gone that long. Thanks for the support guys, and I will probably be at a poker tournament during the 5k, and I don’t really get a chance to play Magic anymore, so I am sure I suck.

Scotty Nguyen asks:

I really admire your play. I am a serious poker player, but I think my main flaw is that I act too quickly at the table. It seems that you are the same way. However, I'm not sure if I consider this a strength. Have you done anything to try and slow down at the poker? I'd be delighted to hear some strategies.

I have been working on slowing down and thinking through every decision on each hand. I act too quickly and I am sure I have made some mistakes because of this. It’s hard to change a habit like that, but you just have to try and slow down. I think about how much more success I might have if I played slower, and that keeps me from going so fast now.

Eric asks:

Do you plan on asking Daniel to a challenge match in one of the games he's offering?
And even if you aren't- which game do you think you'd fare best in against him if you did have a match?

No, most likely not. There is a chance, but I am not that good at heads up, as witnessed by my two major heads up matchesJ. I also am good friends with Daniel, and if it’s not a tournament, I don’t like to play my friends for big money. Someone will have to lose, and will be unhappy, and there is no reason for friends to “cannibalize” each other. If I did play him, my best chance would be at NL Hold’em. He has many years more experience than me at all of the other games.

Egarim says:

I remember Negreanu saying that you can't possibly be making money on the tournament circuit. So... I was wonder if that is true. Are you making a lot of money, just a little, breaking even, just a little under, etc.??? (not including ur 3.5mil payout)

I asked DN about this, and he says this comment was never made. He said it might be something he said twisted around, but he has never said that about me or anyone. He said that it was hard to make good money in tournaments before, but with the size of the payouts today, it’s very good if you are a good tournament player. To answer your other question, first it’s illogical to exclude one result when looking at if I am making money as a tournament player. That counts just as much as the others. But yes, I am up since winning that amount. I post all my major tournament results on my webpage for you to see. I play all the major tournaments in the US, but I don’t usually put up 10k myself. I play satellites, and do fairly well in them, which saves me money. I also have a sponsor, www.bodog.com. They help out a lot. So in short, my upside in tournaments (haven’t factored in this awful WSOP yet) is very good.

Anonymous asks:

last year, before the main event, how did you qualify? did you play in a lot of wsop events or just the main event? and if so did you pay to play or did you qualify via satellite tournaments?

I won an online satellite for $160. I played one other WSOP event, the 3k NL Hold’em event that Mike Sica won. I only played that one because I won 5k in a 500 single table satellite the night before.

J.A.R asks:

What's your secret to memorizing eveyrone's folded cards in stud?

I don’t have a “secret”. I just keep a mental picture of a grid of all the cards in a deck laid out, and put a mental “X” over the exposed cards. Might sounds kind of weird, but that’s how my mind works. The key is just practice and find something that works for you.

Ok, well I am pretty tired now. Good 3k NL Hold'em tournament tomorrow. Almost running out of chances to win a bracelet this year. Noah Boeken wants you to check out his new site, CheckOutTheNuts.com. He says there are some pretty good poker deals there.