DocMartin
09-23-2004, 09:42 PM
Here's one from the Chronicle of Higher Education (goes out to all those silly professors and administrators in academe)
Not in the Cards
A college senior won $3.5-million playing poker. So why does he feel like such a loser?
By THOMAS BARTLETT
Las Vegas
The new millionaire is practicing his autograph. He is not happy with the results. The "D" is too close to the "a," and the "W"? Well, it's nothing special. Where's the smooth stroke, the distinctive flourish? The letters just sit there on the page, looking ordinary.
"How many do I have to sign?" he asks.
"Only a hundred" is the reply.
On the hotel-room desk is a small stack of glossy 5-by-7s. In the photograph, his eyes are hidden behind dark wraparound sunglasses; he is not smiling. After he has signed them, each photograph will be encased in Lucite, bolted to a wooden plaque, and sold over the Internet for $149. The plaque will read: "David Williams: Youngest World Series of Poker Millionaire."
His agent, Brian Balsbaugh, arranged the autograph session. A few months ago, Mr. Williams didn't have an agent. Back then he was a junior at Southern Methodist University, majoring in economics and minoring in mathematics, who drove a 1997 Mitsubishi Eclipse, hung out with his girlfriend, ate at Taco Cabana, enjoyed playing poker online, listened to Nas and Mystikal on his iPod, and wondered what to do with his life. In short, he didn't need an agent.
That changed on May 28 when he placed second in the World Series of Poker, winning $3.5-million and becoming an instant celebrity among poker fans. To understand the nature of this accomplishment, consider that 2,576 players entered the tournament, each of whom had either won a satellite tournament or paid the hefty $10,000 entry fee. Consider, too, that before entering the World Series, most of Mr. Williams's poker experience came from playing online and from reading books on the subject. That he made it past the first day is remarkable. That he very nearly won the whole thing is amazing.
Since then, Mr. Williams, who recently turned 24, has been trying to cope with his sudden fame, figure out how to invest his windfall, and prepare himself for his senior year of college. For the straight-A student who has always loved school, this summer has certainly been educational. He has learned that a $17,000 Rolex can be a letdown. He has learned what it's like to be propositioned by two blondes at a Hard Rock Cafe. He has learned that when you're young and wealthy strangers want to shake your hand, slap your back, or kiss your cheek.
He has also learned what it's like to wake up each morning filled to the brim with regret.
David Williams had no interest in second place. He wanted to be the kid from nowhere who won it all. To come so close, to play so well, to do everything right, and then to lose the final hand was devastating. It hurt like hell. It still hurts like hell. And no amount of money -- not even $3.5-million -- can make the pain go away.
The Game of Life
In order to appreciate how Mr. Williams feels, it helps to know where he came from. His father left before he was born. He was raised in Dallas by his mother and his grandparents, who lived up the street. When he was little, he and his mother played board games and video games together all the time. As a teenager, he was obsessed with the fantasy card game Magic: The Gathering. He traveled to tournaments around the world (thanks to his mother, a flight attendant, he could fly free) and became known as one of the game's best players.
When some of his fellow Magic players started playing poker, he didn't want to be left out. He bought a book that explained the rules and basic strategy and read it cover to cover, twice. This was before he played a single hand.
The variety of poker he learned is called Texas hold'em and it is played everywhere at the moment -- in suburban basements, in campus lounges, and on television. The game is similar to basic five-card draw, except that each player is dealt two cards while five "community" cards are laid face up on the table. Three cable channels devote hours to Texas hold'em every week. At any hour of the day there are thousands of people playing the game on the Internet. There is even an online tournament, now in its second year, to crown the "best college poker player in the world."
Growing up, when he wasn't playing games, Mr. Williams was impressing teachers. He attended the selective Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science, a two-year residential high school where students can take college-level courses. When he graduated from the program, Mr. Williams had two years of college credit and an SAT score in the 1500s. He was accepted by Princeton University and left his hometown in Texas for the faraway land of New Jersey.
He lasted two months. Princeton undergraduates were "snotty," and he was the only black student in his dormitory, he says. He felt alone and lost. His mother got a call from a Princeton official who said he had "never seen a kid as sad" as her son. She encouraged him to come home.
Back in Dallas, he got an internship at Texas Instruments, where he learned to perform failure analysis on semiconductors. Then he got a job at a computer store repairing digital cameras. He also worked on a construction site and as a waiter at a seafood restaurant. "The first time someone said, 'Wow, you're the best waiter I ever had,' I think I got off on that," he says. "That was my goal, to really impress people."
Yet he knew he couldn't spend the rest of his life asking if anyone wanted to see a dessert menu. Returning to Princeton wasn't an option either, even though the university made it clear he would be welcomed back. "I didn't know what I wanted to do," he recalls.
After four years of hopping from job to job, he decided to try a different college. Last year he enrolled at Southern Methodist University, which allowed him to start as a junior thanks to the credits he had earned in high school and offered him several scholarships. Students there were friendlier, he says, and it was much closer to home.
Around this time he started playing poker seriously. He qualified online for a big tournament in Aruba, his first such event. He was knocked out early but found the experience reassuring. "I was worried that everybody would be better than me, that I'd be scared, that I'd be shaking," he says. "But it turned out to be no big deal."
Doing well in college turned out to be no big deal either. Mr. Williams found he could make A's with minimal effort. Even so, he studied and worked hard because he enjoyed it. "Every semester I fall in love with my professors again," he says.
The warm feelings are usually mutual. Mark Fontenot, an adjunct professor of computer science at Southern Methodist, says he was "in awe" of how rapidly Mr. Williams could grasp a challenging concept like, say, dynamic memory allocation. "If I could find a classroom full of Davids, my job would be a lot more fun," says Mr. Fontenot.
The professor says his star pupil seemed restless, ready to move on to the next exercise, eager to tackle a new problem. It was as if he had something to prove.
A Poker Demon
As soon as class ended, Mr. Williams would rush home to play poker online. After the Aruba tournament, he set his sights on poker's holiest event, the World Series, in Las Vegas. Because he didn't have an extra 10 grand lying around, the only way be could gain entry would be to win a qualifying tournament. After several failed attempts, he did just that.
He tried to keep his expectations low. He knew that all but a handful of players leave Sin City empty-handed. He hoped he would play well enough not to embarrass himself.
During the tournament, held at Binion's Horseshoe Casino, he felt calm and focused as long as he was playing poker. During the breaks, however, he was a wreck. He was too nervous to eat and had to subsist on water, tomato juice, and Coke. He didn't sleep much either. When he did, he would talk in his sleep, according to a friend he roomed with, saying things like "Call! Raise! What do you have?"
He made it past the first day, then the second, then the third. In the World Series, players compete for 12 hours a day with only a few short rest periods to break up the monotony. It is a test of mental endurance as much as poker skill.
Mr. Williams continued betting, calling, bluffing, and winning. "It's all sort of a blur," he says. "I was in such a zone. I was a poker demon."
On the seventh day, he found himself at the final table, head to head with a 39-year-old patent lawyer and veteran poker player from Connecticut named Greg Raymer. There was Mr. Williams, in his black, button-down shirt, looking suave and svelte. And there was Mr. Raymer, looking less suave and svelte, but holding considerably more chips.
It came down, as it always does, to one hand. Mr. Williams risked everything on a pair of fours. He never suspected his opponent had a pair of eights.
The Curse of Second Place
In a photograph taken seconds after the tournament ended, Mr. Raymer has his mouth open mid-yell and his arms raised in triumph. In the background, Mr. Williams is walking away from the table, head down, fading into the crowd.
After the loss, Mr. Williams and his girlfriend, Brittany DeWald, drove to In-N-Out Burger where he ate his first meal in a week. Then they went to bed. "I blew it," he kept saying, over and over, as they drifted off to sleep. "It's OK, baby," she kept telling him.
The next day he returned to the casino to collect his winnings. Tournament officials offered to "bag it up" for him. They weren't kidding. Mr. Williams thought it might be awkward getting on a plane back to Dallas with $3.5-million in cash. He asked for a check instead.
Yes, the money is great. It is more than the average waiter makes in a lifetime. It is more than the average waiter makes in two lifetimes. And he is grateful for what it's allowed him to do, like pay off his mother's mortgage and buy his sister a spiffy laptop computer. He has also hired a professional financial planner to help him invest his winnings.
His one splurge so far was the $17,000 Rolex, which he now wishes he hadn't bought. For one thing, he is no longer fond of the diamond-encrusted bezel. What's more, he is worried that people will think he's full of himself, which he is not.
He has also been test-driving cars to replace his Mitsubishi Eclipse (he's got his eye on a particular Mercedes-Benz), but he has yet to buy one. He is hesitant to drop a hundred grand on something that can break down or get stolen. Besides, what will people say if he shows up in a new Mercedes? Then again, what will people say if the young millionaire arrives in a beat-up Mitsubishi?
The money is great. But coming in second carries with it a unique curse: All anyone in the poker world can talk about is the last hand, the one he lost. No one ever mentions the countless hands he won. Should he have suspected that Mr. Raymer had better cards? Did he make a rookie mistake? Did he come so far only to choke at the end?
Even three months later, such thoughts haunt him. "People remember Super Bowl champs; they don't remember second place. That's what makes it so much more important to be the champion," he says. "People usually only mention first place because that's all that really matters."
He has replayed that final hand in his head again and again, trying to figure out what he could have done differently, even though longtime poker players say he didn't do anything wrong. Sometimes you're just not lucky.
Since the World Series, he has played in several tournaments with mixed results. He's convinced he is in a slump and has lost his touch.
Yet there are times when even a worrier like Mr. Williams has to smile. He is buddies now with actor Tobey Maguire, an avid poker player. How many college seniors count Spider-Man among their friends?
Mr. Williams has become a celebrity, too, albeit on a smaller scale. At a recent tournament, he is approached by a man who wants to create a bobblehead doll in his likeness. "That's cool," he tells the man. "Call my agent."
Later, Greg, a representative from Oakley, which makes sunglasses and sportswear, tries to convince Mr. Williams to become an Oakley wearer. Greg explains that such a deal would mean thousands of dollars in free merchandise.
"So, do you have a pair of shades you like to wear?" Greg asks.
"Yeah," Mr. Williams tells him. "I have my lucky pair."
Greg nods, defeated. "Wouldn't want to change that!"
After Mr. Williams walks away, Greg refers to his lucky sunglasses as "those dog-[censored] things" and predicts that he will eventually switch to Oakley. "It's not about selling sunglasses," Greg says in an earnest tone. "It's about fun."
There is talk of sponsorship deals and paid appearances. After all, Mr. Williams is good-looking, bright, and personable. When the mood strikes him, he can let loose an enormous smile.
He is also black, which helps him stand out from the mostly white poker crowd and might draw more minority players to the game -- at least that's what his agent thinks. "I believe he's going to be a household name," Mr. Balsbaugh says.
He would be even more marketable, everyone agrees, if he had a good nickname. The lawyer who beat him is known as Fossilman because he collects fossils and often brings one with him when he plays poker. Other players have nicknames like Superfly, Motormouth, Cupcake, and the Ripper.
But so far David Williams is just David Williams, except when announcers or articles refer to him as "the college student."
Never Enough
Right now Mr. Williams is focused less on nicknames and marketability and more on his senior year of college. After he graduates, he thinks he might move to Los Angeles or Las Vegas and continue playing poker. Or maybe he'll start a business. Who knows?
Plenty of people have asked him why he would ever sit through another class now that he is a millionaire. "I was never going to school to get rich," he tells them. "I've always been a good student. What's the point of quitting right before you get to the end?"
A couple of weeks before the semester begins, Mr. Williams is sitting in the poker room of the Mirage casino here, quietly dominating the eight other players at his table. He is wearing a gray T-shirt, beat-up jeans, and the same pair of dirty tennis shoes he has had for at least a year.
Around midnight it is down to Mr. Williams and a balding tourist who is clearly thrilled and nervous to be playing him. They agree after a while to quit and divide the pot -- to "chop" in poker lingo -- with Mr. Williams, who has more chips, taking the lion's share.
"That's David Williams," the tourist tells his friends when it's over. "He came in second at the World Series."
As he is leaving the table, Mr. Williams peels a couple of hundreds from the wad of cash he just won and tosses the bills on the table for the dealer, a woman in a vest and bow tie, who is old enough to be his mother.
Someone asks if a $200 tip is normal.
"Yeah," he says. "Just about."
But Mr. Williams pauses, unsure of himself, then turns to the dealer.
"Is that enough?" he asks.
The dealer doesn't answer. She just smiles wearily and shrugs.
Not in the Cards
A college senior won $3.5-million playing poker. So why does he feel like such a loser?
By THOMAS BARTLETT
Las Vegas
The new millionaire is practicing his autograph. He is not happy with the results. The "D" is too close to the "a," and the "W"? Well, it's nothing special. Where's the smooth stroke, the distinctive flourish? The letters just sit there on the page, looking ordinary.
"How many do I have to sign?" he asks.
"Only a hundred" is the reply.
On the hotel-room desk is a small stack of glossy 5-by-7s. In the photograph, his eyes are hidden behind dark wraparound sunglasses; he is not smiling. After he has signed them, each photograph will be encased in Lucite, bolted to a wooden plaque, and sold over the Internet for $149. The plaque will read: "David Williams: Youngest World Series of Poker Millionaire."
His agent, Brian Balsbaugh, arranged the autograph session. A few months ago, Mr. Williams didn't have an agent. Back then he was a junior at Southern Methodist University, majoring in economics and minoring in mathematics, who drove a 1997 Mitsubishi Eclipse, hung out with his girlfriend, ate at Taco Cabana, enjoyed playing poker online, listened to Nas and Mystikal on his iPod, and wondered what to do with his life. In short, he didn't need an agent.
That changed on May 28 when he placed second in the World Series of Poker, winning $3.5-million and becoming an instant celebrity among poker fans. To understand the nature of this accomplishment, consider that 2,576 players entered the tournament, each of whom had either won a satellite tournament or paid the hefty $10,000 entry fee. Consider, too, that before entering the World Series, most of Mr. Williams's poker experience came from playing online and from reading books on the subject. That he made it past the first day is remarkable. That he very nearly won the whole thing is amazing.
Since then, Mr. Williams, who recently turned 24, has been trying to cope with his sudden fame, figure out how to invest his windfall, and prepare himself for his senior year of college. For the straight-A student who has always loved school, this summer has certainly been educational. He has learned that a $17,000 Rolex can be a letdown. He has learned what it's like to be propositioned by two blondes at a Hard Rock Cafe. He has learned that when you're young and wealthy strangers want to shake your hand, slap your back, or kiss your cheek.
He has also learned what it's like to wake up each morning filled to the brim with regret.
David Williams had no interest in second place. He wanted to be the kid from nowhere who won it all. To come so close, to play so well, to do everything right, and then to lose the final hand was devastating. It hurt like hell. It still hurts like hell. And no amount of money -- not even $3.5-million -- can make the pain go away.
The Game of Life
In order to appreciate how Mr. Williams feels, it helps to know where he came from. His father left before he was born. He was raised in Dallas by his mother and his grandparents, who lived up the street. When he was little, he and his mother played board games and video games together all the time. As a teenager, he was obsessed with the fantasy card game Magic: The Gathering. He traveled to tournaments around the world (thanks to his mother, a flight attendant, he could fly free) and became known as one of the game's best players.
When some of his fellow Magic players started playing poker, he didn't want to be left out. He bought a book that explained the rules and basic strategy and read it cover to cover, twice. This was before he played a single hand.
The variety of poker he learned is called Texas hold'em and it is played everywhere at the moment -- in suburban basements, in campus lounges, and on television. The game is similar to basic five-card draw, except that each player is dealt two cards while five "community" cards are laid face up on the table. Three cable channels devote hours to Texas hold'em every week. At any hour of the day there are thousands of people playing the game on the Internet. There is even an online tournament, now in its second year, to crown the "best college poker player in the world."
Growing up, when he wasn't playing games, Mr. Williams was impressing teachers. He attended the selective Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science, a two-year residential high school where students can take college-level courses. When he graduated from the program, Mr. Williams had two years of college credit and an SAT score in the 1500s. He was accepted by Princeton University and left his hometown in Texas for the faraway land of New Jersey.
He lasted two months. Princeton undergraduates were "snotty," and he was the only black student in his dormitory, he says. He felt alone and lost. His mother got a call from a Princeton official who said he had "never seen a kid as sad" as her son. She encouraged him to come home.
Back in Dallas, he got an internship at Texas Instruments, where he learned to perform failure analysis on semiconductors. Then he got a job at a computer store repairing digital cameras. He also worked on a construction site and as a waiter at a seafood restaurant. "The first time someone said, 'Wow, you're the best waiter I ever had,' I think I got off on that," he says. "That was my goal, to really impress people."
Yet he knew he couldn't spend the rest of his life asking if anyone wanted to see a dessert menu. Returning to Princeton wasn't an option either, even though the university made it clear he would be welcomed back. "I didn't know what I wanted to do," he recalls.
After four years of hopping from job to job, he decided to try a different college. Last year he enrolled at Southern Methodist University, which allowed him to start as a junior thanks to the credits he had earned in high school and offered him several scholarships. Students there were friendlier, he says, and it was much closer to home.
Around this time he started playing poker seriously. He qualified online for a big tournament in Aruba, his first such event. He was knocked out early but found the experience reassuring. "I was worried that everybody would be better than me, that I'd be scared, that I'd be shaking," he says. "But it turned out to be no big deal."
Doing well in college turned out to be no big deal either. Mr. Williams found he could make A's with minimal effort. Even so, he studied and worked hard because he enjoyed it. "Every semester I fall in love with my professors again," he says.
The warm feelings are usually mutual. Mark Fontenot, an adjunct professor of computer science at Southern Methodist, says he was "in awe" of how rapidly Mr. Williams could grasp a challenging concept like, say, dynamic memory allocation. "If I could find a classroom full of Davids, my job would be a lot more fun," says Mr. Fontenot.
The professor says his star pupil seemed restless, ready to move on to the next exercise, eager to tackle a new problem. It was as if he had something to prove.
A Poker Demon
As soon as class ended, Mr. Williams would rush home to play poker online. After the Aruba tournament, he set his sights on poker's holiest event, the World Series, in Las Vegas. Because he didn't have an extra 10 grand lying around, the only way be could gain entry would be to win a qualifying tournament. After several failed attempts, he did just that.
He tried to keep his expectations low. He knew that all but a handful of players leave Sin City empty-handed. He hoped he would play well enough not to embarrass himself.
During the tournament, held at Binion's Horseshoe Casino, he felt calm and focused as long as he was playing poker. During the breaks, however, he was a wreck. He was too nervous to eat and had to subsist on water, tomato juice, and Coke. He didn't sleep much either. When he did, he would talk in his sleep, according to a friend he roomed with, saying things like "Call! Raise! What do you have?"
He made it past the first day, then the second, then the third. In the World Series, players compete for 12 hours a day with only a few short rest periods to break up the monotony. It is a test of mental endurance as much as poker skill.
Mr. Williams continued betting, calling, bluffing, and winning. "It's all sort of a blur," he says. "I was in such a zone. I was a poker demon."
On the seventh day, he found himself at the final table, head to head with a 39-year-old patent lawyer and veteran poker player from Connecticut named Greg Raymer. There was Mr. Williams, in his black, button-down shirt, looking suave and svelte. And there was Mr. Raymer, looking less suave and svelte, but holding considerably more chips.
It came down, as it always does, to one hand. Mr. Williams risked everything on a pair of fours. He never suspected his opponent had a pair of eights.
The Curse of Second Place
In a photograph taken seconds after the tournament ended, Mr. Raymer has his mouth open mid-yell and his arms raised in triumph. In the background, Mr. Williams is walking away from the table, head down, fading into the crowd.
After the loss, Mr. Williams and his girlfriend, Brittany DeWald, drove to In-N-Out Burger where he ate his first meal in a week. Then they went to bed. "I blew it," he kept saying, over and over, as they drifted off to sleep. "It's OK, baby," she kept telling him.
The next day he returned to the casino to collect his winnings. Tournament officials offered to "bag it up" for him. They weren't kidding. Mr. Williams thought it might be awkward getting on a plane back to Dallas with $3.5-million in cash. He asked for a check instead.
Yes, the money is great. It is more than the average waiter makes in a lifetime. It is more than the average waiter makes in two lifetimes. And he is grateful for what it's allowed him to do, like pay off his mother's mortgage and buy his sister a spiffy laptop computer. He has also hired a professional financial planner to help him invest his winnings.
His one splurge so far was the $17,000 Rolex, which he now wishes he hadn't bought. For one thing, he is no longer fond of the diamond-encrusted bezel. What's more, he is worried that people will think he's full of himself, which he is not.
He has also been test-driving cars to replace his Mitsubishi Eclipse (he's got his eye on a particular Mercedes-Benz), but he has yet to buy one. He is hesitant to drop a hundred grand on something that can break down or get stolen. Besides, what will people say if he shows up in a new Mercedes? Then again, what will people say if the young millionaire arrives in a beat-up Mitsubishi?
The money is great. But coming in second carries with it a unique curse: All anyone in the poker world can talk about is the last hand, the one he lost. No one ever mentions the countless hands he won. Should he have suspected that Mr. Raymer had better cards? Did he make a rookie mistake? Did he come so far only to choke at the end?
Even three months later, such thoughts haunt him. "People remember Super Bowl champs; they don't remember second place. That's what makes it so much more important to be the champion," he says. "People usually only mention first place because that's all that really matters."
He has replayed that final hand in his head again and again, trying to figure out what he could have done differently, even though longtime poker players say he didn't do anything wrong. Sometimes you're just not lucky.
Since the World Series, he has played in several tournaments with mixed results. He's convinced he is in a slump and has lost his touch.
Yet there are times when even a worrier like Mr. Williams has to smile. He is buddies now with actor Tobey Maguire, an avid poker player. How many college seniors count Spider-Man among their friends?
Mr. Williams has become a celebrity, too, albeit on a smaller scale. At a recent tournament, he is approached by a man who wants to create a bobblehead doll in his likeness. "That's cool," he tells the man. "Call my agent."
Later, Greg, a representative from Oakley, which makes sunglasses and sportswear, tries to convince Mr. Williams to become an Oakley wearer. Greg explains that such a deal would mean thousands of dollars in free merchandise.
"So, do you have a pair of shades you like to wear?" Greg asks.
"Yeah," Mr. Williams tells him. "I have my lucky pair."
Greg nods, defeated. "Wouldn't want to change that!"
After Mr. Williams walks away, Greg refers to his lucky sunglasses as "those dog-[censored] things" and predicts that he will eventually switch to Oakley. "It's not about selling sunglasses," Greg says in an earnest tone. "It's about fun."
There is talk of sponsorship deals and paid appearances. After all, Mr. Williams is good-looking, bright, and personable. When the mood strikes him, he can let loose an enormous smile.
He is also black, which helps him stand out from the mostly white poker crowd and might draw more minority players to the game -- at least that's what his agent thinks. "I believe he's going to be a household name," Mr. Balsbaugh says.
He would be even more marketable, everyone agrees, if he had a good nickname. The lawyer who beat him is known as Fossilman because he collects fossils and often brings one with him when he plays poker. Other players have nicknames like Superfly, Motormouth, Cupcake, and the Ripper.
But so far David Williams is just David Williams, except when announcers or articles refer to him as "the college student."
Never Enough
Right now Mr. Williams is focused less on nicknames and marketability and more on his senior year of college. After he graduates, he thinks he might move to Los Angeles or Las Vegas and continue playing poker. Or maybe he'll start a business. Who knows?
Plenty of people have asked him why he would ever sit through another class now that he is a millionaire. "I was never going to school to get rich," he tells them. "I've always been a good student. What's the point of quitting right before you get to the end?"
A couple of weeks before the semester begins, Mr. Williams is sitting in the poker room of the Mirage casino here, quietly dominating the eight other players at his table. He is wearing a gray T-shirt, beat-up jeans, and the same pair of dirty tennis shoes he has had for at least a year.
Around midnight it is down to Mr. Williams and a balding tourist who is clearly thrilled and nervous to be playing him. They agree after a while to quit and divide the pot -- to "chop" in poker lingo -- with Mr. Williams, who has more chips, taking the lion's share.
"That's David Williams," the tourist tells his friends when it's over. "He came in second at the World Series."
As he is leaving the table, Mr. Williams peels a couple of hundreds from the wad of cash he just won and tosses the bills on the table for the dealer, a woman in a vest and bow tie, who is old enough to be his mother.
Someone asks if a $200 tip is normal.
"Yeah," he says. "Just about."
But Mr. Williams pauses, unsure of himself, then turns to the dealer.
"Is that enough?" he asks.
The dealer doesn't answer. She just smiles wearily and shrugs.