By beating five of the best players in the world to win the latest edition of Poker After Dark last week, David Williams showed why he is one of the best players in the world. The game included Howard Lederer, Mike Matusow, Antonio Esfandiari, Eli Elezra, Barry Greenstein, as well as BodogLife’s own Williams.

Williams was able to pick up $20,000 more than the usual $120,000 that goes to the winner of the event, after Eli Elezra busted out early and bought back in. Williams did have to get lucky with his pocket Jacks against Howard Lederer’s pocket Aces, but was able to hit a third Jack on the river to knock the Professor out.

The heads-up battle was against Antonio Esfandiari and didn’t last very long, with Williams’ pocket sevens holding up against Esfandiari’s A-5. That was all David Williams needed to take down the $140,000 winner-take-all prize.

The inaugural Bodog Poker Open got underway yesterday with event #1 No-Limit $250+20. This is Bodog’s first big set of online tournaments, which will run for six days from the 3rd of March to the 9th. Bodog will add on $10,000 to each preliminary event, and another $25,000 on the $500 main event slated for the 9th. The winner also receives an engraved $4500 watch from Omega Speed Master as a kick-ass trophy.

The tournaments feature a good mix of holdem action, and Bodog is offering great satellite options for all events. They are giving away 20 seats per night per tournament, and they will run until the 8th.

The rest of the events are:

March 4th     #2 NL 6-Handed $300+25 $10,000
March 5th     #3 Rebuy (NL) $100+10 $10,000
March 6th     #4 Pot-Limit $200+15 $10,000
March 7th      #5 Limit $150+10 $10,000
March 8th        — various satellites —
March 9th     #6 NL Main Event $470+30 $25,000

This is pretty cool — a poker tournament series exclusively for online poker bloggers. Created by the folks over at Bodog Poker, this unique poker tournament is expected to draw a huge response from the online blogging community. And with a $12,000 WSOP grand prize with Team Bodog it’s no small wonder.

Bodog Poker Bloggers Tournament Series

According to their website…the Bodog Poker Blogger Tournament Series is composed of a series of 18 qualifying tournaments that run weekly from Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 to Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008. The top 30% of finishers in each qualifying tournament will earn points based on their finish. These points will be used to rank players over 4 months of qualifying. At the end of the qualifying series, the top 18 players on the Tournament Leader Board will play in the Final Tournament on Tuesday, June 10th, 2008 with the first place finisher winning a $12,000 WSOP prize package!

So here’s what I’m thinking…an open challenge to all online poker bloggers to meet up in this tournament series? What do you think?