Bobby Baldwin's Winning Poker Secrets
Coming into Day 3 of the first Bobby Baldwin Classic, there was the potential for plenty of World Poker Tour history to be made. While some of that potential history fizzled out, including Phil Hellmuth bubbling the official final table, history beckons. Four members of the WPT Bobby Baldwin Classic final table are already part of the WPT’s Champions Club, including three-time winner Darren Elias.
Bobby Baldwin was the subject of a biography and strategy guide authored by Mike Caro in 1979 named Bobby Baldwin's Winning Poker Secrets, and he penned his own collection of poker stories, Tales out of Tulsa, in the mid-1980s. After winning back-to-back Main Events in both 1980 and ’81, drugs and other addictions took him away from the limelight of poker for 16 years. Making a seemingly heroic comeback in 1997, “The Kid” took home the $1,000,000 grand prize and stood on top of the poker world once again.
Elias is playing for the most history. Six players have three WPT victories, but no one has ever been able to win four career titles. The overwhelming chip leader, who controls over 40% of the total chips in play, could change that on Wednesday.
Day 2 chip leader Jonathan Little and Sam Panzica will enter the WPT Bobby Baldwin Classic final table in the bottom half of the leaderboard, but will both be looking to win their third WPT titles. It’s been over a decade since Little first made a WPT winner’s circle appearance, but Panzica has won twice since 2016.
Joe McKeehen has come close to a few World Poker Tour titles since 2016, but a WPT victory has eluded the 2015 WSOP Main Event champion. If McKeehen can claim his first WPT title today, he will also win the Hublot WPT Player of the Year race.
Two international players round out the top-half of the lineup. Germany’s Dietrich Fast, who won the WPT LA Poker Classic in 2016, will return second in chips, while Taiwan’s Kitty Kuo returns third. Fast will be going for his second WPT title, while Kuo will try to become the second female player to ever win a WPT Main Tour event.
A complete list of the chip counts is listed below:
- Dietrich Fast – 801,000
- Jonathan Little – 300,000
- Sam Panzica – 566,000
- Darren Elias – 2,127,000
- Kitty Kuo – 683,000
- Joe McKeehen – 385,000
In addition to the potential historical outcomes at today’s Bobby Baldwin Classic final table, there is also the better part of a $1.5 million prize pool and a seat in the WPT Tournament of Champions up for grabs.
The WPT Bobby Baldwin Classic final table payouts are listed below:
- $387,580
- $248,380
- $178,610
- $130,895
- $97,795
- $74,520
The WPT Bobby Baldwin Classic final table will stream live on PokerGO starting at 2:30 PM PT. Subscribe now to watch and to watch the WPT Tournament of Champions final table this weekend.
At a time when Las Vegas is all abuzz about the implications of Steve Wynn’s fall from grace, I am reminded both of his rise as a visionary who brought a glitzy casino into the Wild West downtown section of Las Vegas and his homerun in recruiting World Series of Poker Champion, Bobby Baldwin, as an executive. Wynn took Baldwin up the corporate ladder to the positi9n of president of the Golden Nugget.
Well schooled in accounting matters and people reading skills, Baldwin went on to become president of Mirage Resorts, Wynn’s first property on the famous Las Vegas Strip. He then moved onward and upward to Wynn’s next crown jewel, Bellagio, before joining the C-Suite of the behemoth MGM Company, where Wynn’s arch rival, Terry Lani, was the CEO.
When MGM, took aim at the Wynn properties and acquired them– lock, stock, and barrel, Baldwin remained a winner, convincing Lanni to send him up a higher corporate ladder in the MGM infrastructure.
Wynn was forced into a sale, taking a pretty penny and a non-compete agreement that put him off the casino- building grid for years. But once freed from his non compete shackles, Wynn was back in the saddle. he built a new spectacular resort and recognized, once again as an incredibly effective casino visionary–with plenty of political clout.
And then came an all too familiar jolt of late– a powerful man in the crosshairs of allegations of sexual misconduct in the workplace. Last week, Steve Wynn resigned his position of Chair of the National Republican Committee and then as Chairman of the Wynn Hotel and Casino. acknowledging, only, that the accusations lodged against him, had caused a public relations disaster for himself and the properties that bear his name.
For Baldwin — a storied history continues. The late Terri Lanni called Baldwin’s decision strategies “artfully refined over the years,” undoubtedly perfected by paying careful attention at poker tables–where he is still a threat to younger poker wizards.
As a woman who has worked and played in male dominated worlds, including casinos from Las Vegas to Macau, I have learned that even in the last bastions of rugged male chauvinism there are good role models as well as bad ones to be found.
I have known Steve Wynn casually for more than 30 years-well enough to share a few group meals and work together on a couple of charity dinners in Las Vegas; not well enough to have any personal clue about his alleged sexual improprieties with the Company’s massage therapists–some of whom worked on my ever -aching feet. I have had a bit more personal experience with Bobby Baldwin–enough to know that I was very fortunate to make his acquaintance.
By the looks of the first poker table I visited (in downtown Las Vegas), I suspected that it would be “slim pickins'” to find a few good men! Baldwin turned out to be one of many poker pros who has taught me crucial negotiating skills through the power of keen observation.
Bobby Baldwin's Winning Poker Secrets Revealed
My early on poker friend, “Suds,” a successful businessman and an elite poker player, introduced me to Bobby Baldwin. I instantly took the measure of the man as smart, well-mannered, focused, skeptical, determined, and– a skilled “people reader. He exuded inner confidence.
I don’t know Bobby Baldwin well, but I certainly have experienced his winning ways. At the Grand Prix of Poker–way back in 1985, we were both invited to play in the “Super Bowl of Poker Charity Invitational. Bobby crippled me –early in the proceedings. He played a pair of sevens as if they were Aces–because he knew I would fold to his big raise! And then he toughened me up by warning me to hunker down and study how best to play each hand. Bobby Baldwin’s sage words have proven applicable, everywhere!
Baldwin has the world on a string!
While I held on long enough to reach the final table, my hours there were short and less than sweet. Bobby eventually knocked me out in fifth place, taking advantage of another moment of inexcusable distraction on my part. I tracked Bobby down to thank him for the thrashing and promised to take his words to heart.
The high profile C-Suite executive of MGM and former winner of the World Series of Poker Championship had already begun his rapid trajectory to the top of the corporate ladder, before I met him, noting, “The only difference between the poker room and the boardroom is the shape of the table.”
Weeks after our Grand Prix encounters, we met up at a formal charity event in Las Vegas. He complimented my gown and then kidded me, about being distracted at the final table of the Grand Prix, whispering, “It pays to watch hands when you are not in them.”
Following Bobby’s suggestion, I began to approach card tables and conference tables with more focus, determined to prove I was not one of those people with the attention span of a gnat!
I created exercises to improve overall sensory perception, and learned the high value of awareness of people’s speech and silence–both at the poker table and in business meetings. As I developed these skills, I made more confident analyses of risk -reward ratios, and I found myself in fewer jams–everywhere.
Master dealmakers are distinguishable t by their people-reading expertise and negotiating savvy. Bobby’s advice resonated deeply with me. I learned, slowly and methodically how to improve my attentiveness. If I had to guess how Bobby Baldwin came to hold the world on a string, I would make a ladylike wager that his secret “sauce” is his power of concentration and attention to facts and behavior that others miss regularly. He also holds his cards very close to the vest.
Bobby Baldwin's Winning Poker Secrets Game
Decades after Steve Wynn’s Grand Prix Poker Charity Tournament, I was visiting the late Terri Lanni, former Chairman of MGM. By this time, Bobby Baldwin had become president of MGM. He popped into Terri’s office and joined us for a casual chat. I reminded him of the long ago poker confrontations, while attempting to convince him I was no easy target anymore. He smiled agreeably, but gave no hint as to his own conclusion.