Posted 16 March 2005 - 08:55 PM
I had seen David Williams around before his debut at the WSOP while playing on the Magic the Gathering pro tour, although I didnt know he was a poker player at the time, and the Magic community went poker-crazy when he made second (which is about when I got into the game).I think that David Williams' extreme aggresiveness reflected, as he had stated in the interview, that he wasnt sure how he would stand up to Negreanu. I think David thought his best chance was to try to take advantage of the high blinds and his substantial chip lead. To me, the heads up match was a race between Negreanu hitting a big hand, and David Williams aggresion plus the pressure of the blinds forcing Daniel to make a desperate move. Obviously it was more complex then that, but Heads up with high blinds is kind of a crapshoot- it would be nice to see more tournaments like Poker at the Plaza, which was really enlightening to me. I think its important to note that the majority of the hands they showed Daniel betting in heads up were not made hands - he seemed to be swimming in an ocean of draws, and considering Williams' propensity for check raising, this clearly wasnt what Daniel was looking for. Then again, a couple wired aces and kings cant hurt, and there is no denying that the majory of Williams' check-raises were excellently placed.I found a few hands really interesting: I think the hand (before heads up) where David Williams opened the pot and Daniel called with J9, was tough to figure out. Dave Williams seemed to follow up his post flop bluffs with bluffs on the turn in a number of situations, which is fairly unusual to me. I assume on this hand, where the flop was QKJ with two diamonds, David assumed once a low card hit on the turn he should keep betting to push DN off a draw. I thought Daniel's call on the flop was excellent. The Q7 hand: "meh". not much to say, it was one of those situations that had to happen if Daniel was going to climb back where the big bluff from David runs into a big hand.Oh yeah, I know Daniel loves 67 suited type hands, but I was fairly surprised when he called for a large portion of his stack after he raised the button to 120, and David Williams popped him back another 380 thousand. I was joking with my dad that Daniel is so good, he can find implied odds in any preflop call leaving him with over 70% of his stack intact! But still, I found this call of such a large bet slightly curious -perhaps Daniel had a read on Dave for high cards and thought he could push a flop with low cards? If Daniel thought Dave was bluffing, calling seems even more dangerous, because he has no idea where he is after the flop!And of course the best hand- K 2 with the king of spades vs 99! I thought this hand was great. Dave Williams checks 99 from the bb when Daniel limps in, and both check down the flop with the two spades. the third spade hits and david checks again, and then raises daniel. I think the reason Daniel calls when the river, a 6, makes three of a kind, is David's raise on the turn-its too SMALL. It doesnt seem like its a raise designed to knock out draws. In other words, David's hand is so strong he doesnt care about draws (which DOES seem unlikely, since he would need a made flush, or a full house) or he is on the flush or straight draw(more likely then flush) or even a bluff which isnt that unlikely considering Davids play up to that point, and is just trying to win the pot right there or give himself an opportunity to bluff the river. I believe the final board is 6 6 8 9 6 with three spades, i. David's near pot size bet on the river seems like that bluff that david had to be factoring in if he had check raised danny with a draw there, making Daniel suspicious because it seems impossible to put David on anything with his checks and the too-small raise other then a missed draw or the stone cold nuts. It would be great to hear commentary on this hand.