Poker Tournament Trail -- Dwyte PilgrimPilgrim Talks About the Evolution of His Poker Career and Approach to Top Tournaments |
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Dwyte Pilgrim (pictured left) made seven final tables and won two poker tournaments in 2009. Even though he had earned 1,994 Card Player Player of the Year points and caught the attention of many people in poker as a rising star, you could tell that he was not satisfied. He wanted to keep improving — he wanted more.
Early in 2010, he has found continued success. He already has made nine final tables and booked four tournament victories in four months. His tournament wins include preliminary events at the Southern Poker Championship in January, the Foxwoods Mega Stack Challenge in February, and the World Series of Poker Circuit Harrah’s Rincon stop in March. He has accumulated $271,767 in tournament winnings and 3,116 POY points, which puts him in third place in the current standings.
Pilgrim has gained recognition in the poker world primarily thanks to his success at WSOP Circuit events. He has carved up Circuit events to the tune of 19 cashes, one championship event win, and two preliminary victories, and now he is ready to make the leap to the premiere poker tournaments in the world. Card Player caught up with Pilgrim last week at Bellagio, where he was playing deep into the $25,000 no-limit hold’em WPT Championship event. Read on below to see the way that Pilgrim is approaching the next step in his poker career.
Ryan Lucchesi: You have started 2010 as well as anyone in poker. What has been the secret to your consistency?
Dwyte Pilgrim: Right now I’m just trying to stay consistent and play my best poker and hopefully get a break here and there.
RL: How has your continued transition stepping up to the largest buy-in events from the WSOP Circuit events been going?
DP: It’s definitely a learning experience, there are things you need to mold into your learning curve. You have to adapt to these pros fast. I feel like it’s been a good transition. I’ve taken a couple of good shots at WPT events so far, but a couple of times, things didn’t go my way. Hopefully, I can consistently continue to play at that high level.
RL: How does it feel to be the most dominant player in the history of the WSOP Circuit series?
DP: That’s definitely a great accomplishment. You have to have a base if you’re going to be good at anything. I feel the Circuit events were a good place to build my career and now hopefully I can move up.
RL: What has the past year been like for you?
DP: In the last 14 months I’ve had 29 cashes, made 18 final tables, and won six tournaments, so I’m on pace to have 50 cashes in two years. Besides that, I’m just trying to take it one final table at a time.
RL: Does it mean more to you to build an impressive collection of results as opposed to one big score?
DP: I definitely respect the body of work a player puts together more. You can get lucky and win a tournament but consistent players keep putting themselves in situations to shine. Those players are going to find a way to get to the top eventually. You learn all the different ways and all of the different angles you need to take to get to where you’re going.
If you see that someone has made 18 final tables then you know he didn’t take the same angle to make all of them. The variance of the game doesn’t allow that. He had to go through a lot of different situations to get there. He had to go through a lot of different fields and make a lot of different adjustments. I think that I have shown that I can make a lot of different adjustments and adapt to the situation.
RL: A very high percentage of your results include final-table appearance and wins. How do you make your cashes count by playing deep into events?
DP: My game has a lot of different dimensions. When I started out I was an online junkie who played every day. Then I moved into the Taj Mahal for a year and played straight cash. I have elements that come from playing online, playing in live cash games, and playing in live tournaments on the WSOP Circuit tour. That allows me to change my game and adapt to the situation.
RL: When you’re playing in a marquee event like the WPT Championship what are you trying to absorb from the top professionals around you as you compete against them?
DP: I want to be able to build up a mutual respect with them. Your game speaks for itself so you want to get in there and play some hands with them to show that you’re a player. After a while you know if you respect each other, and if you don’t then that’s going to come up later on in the tournament.
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