ASK THE PROS: David Williams and the Daily Grind
Bodog poker pro answers questions from you, the reader, on how to become a poker pro, how to play a large stack at a final table, what a "cooler" deck is and much more
Dec. 22, 2006
Compiled by Bodog Nation Contributing Writers
David Williams has a World Series of Poker bracelet from the seven-card stud event and has earned more money playing poker in two years than most people earn in a lifetime. He's the type of player who has advice worth listening to and you asked for it, so here it is.
Dear David, I am one of your biggest fans ever since that 2004 WSOP tournament you played in. It has inspired me to play poker even more than I have in the past. Now I have a 6:00AM-2:30PM job and I know I'm a good poker player but one of my biggest fears of playing in a live tournament (like the WSOP or WPT, etc.) is first of course the money and secondly is that I actually play in one and not walk away with any cash to pay my bills or anything else. So how did you start out? Did you have anyone help you out? Maybe you have some pointers or advice for me? Thanks for your time and hope to hear from you soon!
-Steven DeLeon
I started out eight years ago playing small limit hold’em games. I grinded it out daily and slowly until I felt I had the confidence to play in big tournaments. Then I didn’t directly buy in. I played in satellites with a small percentage of my bank roll to keep me from going broke. The best way to get in the large live tournaments is to play small satellites online like the ones on Bodog.com. They are also a good way to gauge your tournament strength. Usually, if you can’t win a seat in a satellite, you aren’t ready for the big leagues. It takes time and patience.
I assume when you sit at a table, like most pros or serious players, you feel you are capable of competing with anyone seated with you and dominating many. So what mix would you prefer, say at a final table? Nine players who are horrible and got there on dumb luck or nine good pros? I assume it would be a mix so there would be some stability as well as opportunity.
-Rob Malone
I would prefer nine horrible players obviously. Now if I had the choice between loose or tight and between weak and aggressive I would want the weak tight players so I could just run them over. Anyone who tells you they don’t like playing against bad players because they are clueless and get lucky is a bad player themselves. Any true professional would love to play against horrible players. Sure they may get lucky some of the time, but if you are good at what you do, you have more skill and experience and you are going to beat them most of the time. You just have to adapt your approach to their style. Good players are going to be able to mix it up and adapt to you while the horrible ones won't.
I would like to know which style you prefer to play at a final table when you are a massive chipleader. I recently went to the final table with around 700,000 in chips and the next biggest stack had 86,000, all the remaining players had between 15,000 and 80,000. I played very tight only raising with premium hands and some fellow players told me I should be raising every pot but my thought was, with that many chips accumulated, why risk a courtesy double up to players with less than premium hands? I am a naturally aggressive player but thought that was the wrong strategy in this case when I already have twice the amount of chips as the whole table put together. I figured I had plenty once it got down to heads up but I ended up finishing second and losing the heads-up battle. I guess my question is how would you have played this situation? Tight-aggressive or would you put lots of pressure on short stacks with less than premium hands? I just had so many chips I did not see the need in trying to steal a lot of pots.
-James Jordan
I prefer to play very aggressive and put a lot of pressure on those short stacks, but there is not one way to play it and I wouldn’t say you did anything wrong. The thing is, I wouldn’t always play it one way either. You have to be able to adapt to the variables at the table. How the other players are playing, how they perceive you, how the stacks sizes are changing and position. Sometimes you want to play tight and sometimes you want to apply maximum pressure. You didn’t do anything wrong though, just tough luck. Heads up is hard.
Hands are sometimes referred to as a "cooler". What does that mean?
-Del Westlund
A “cooler” is a “cold deck”. A cold deck was a term used to describe a deck that had been stacked and set up to give someone a bad beat by giving them a monster hand that is usually the second nuts and someone else one a notch higher, that usually results in them getting all of their money in and one person going bust. The term has been modernized to cooler and doesn’t imply any cheating going on anymore. It’s just a way of saying a situation is so rare and super unlucky that it appears as if it was a cold deck.
How do you handle a maniac to your right who repeatedly raises into you?
-Gary Zizzo
I sit patiently and wait for premium hands and punish them with position. This is a great situation to be in, because most of the time when you reraise them with a big hand they can’t call and you pick up valuable chips.
I seem to bust out early or barely survive to the money any advice?
-Shelby Howard
Play tighter and practice more on the smaller tournaments at Bodog.com.
Sometimes the pros can misread the other players at the table. On T.V. they just show the good reads, I was wondering at a typical tourney, what is the percent of good reads vs. bad reads?
-Eric Crunkleton
It is hard to put a quantity on something like this because it’s not a stat I keep track of, but I would guess most of the world class pros are correct about 90% of the time. They may miss some big ones but there are many small reads going on in most hands being played.
If you've got a question that David Williams doesn't answer here be sure to send in your feedback to get your question in to him, Josh Arieh or Evelyn Ng.
PHOTO: David Williams about to win a bracelet at the 2006 WSOP. (Bodog Nation file photo)
