David Williams

Biography

David Williams was born in 1980 in Arlington, Texas. After he finished High School, Williams was accepted to both Harvard and Princeton, however, after a short while of studying at the Princeton University he decided to return to his home state and study economics at Southern Methodist University. It was at that time when Williams became famous for his card-playing abilities, which, however, had nothing to do with poker. He earned over $30,000 playing Magic: The Gathering and was considered one of the best players in the world.

After some time Williams discovered Texas Hold'em which appeared to be much more profitable than Magic. In the year 2004 came Williams' big brake when he reached the WSOP final table and took home $3.5 Million after finishing second and falling only to Greg Raymer in a heads-up battle. Just a few months later Williams again finished second in a major poker event, this time losing to Daniel Negreanu at the WPT Borgata Poker Open final table.

His first big win came in 2006 WSOP when Williams won his first WSOP bracelet in a $1,500 Seven Card Stud event and collected $163,118 as the first place prize. Another huge live tournament win came in 2010 at the WPT World Championship with Williams finishing first in the $25,000 event and collecting $1.5 Million. Some of his other big tournament achievements include 4th place finishes at the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star event in March 2006 and WPT Mirage Poker Showdown two months later.

When it comes to online poker, Williams' biggest achievement is the 2009 World Championship of Online Poker Event #42 ($2,100 8-Game) title. Williams, under the screen name “RugDoctor”, defeated Alexander “joiso” Kostritsynin to collect $107,800 as the first place prize.

As of 2010, his total live tournament winnings exceed $7,900,000. Over $4 Million of these winnings came off the WSOP tables, while the biggest part of the rest of them were collected at the WPT events.

After his 2004 second place finish at the WSOP Main Event, David Williams signed a sponsorship deal with Bodog and represented the site for almost 7 years. However in 2010 his deal with Bodog expired and he decided to join the team PokerStars.