David Baker posed for his last of many winners photos with friends and family, then with a smile addressed the reporters waiting to interview him, who promised they wouldn’t keep him long, to which he replied,
“This is the fun part. If you can’t enjoy this, then what’s the point?”
He answered his first question about what this fourth bracelet for winning the $5,000 Seniors No-Limit Hold‘em High Roller meant to him, saying, “I don’t know. It’s tough to put into words because I’ve always wanted to win a no-limit, first of all, and this one’s a lot of money.”
As he answered the question, the moment hit him. His voice began to tremble, his eyes welled up, and one of the greatest players in the game today, who’s been in the winner’s circle three times before at the WSOP, was in tears.
It was obvious how much this win meant to him, more so than likely any winner so far this summer.
ODB: Every bracelet is special
The win was truly special for the man known as 'ODB,' the Original David Baker, for those who may not know. While he said he wished his daughter could have been there, Baker’s wife, mother, and a rail full of friends were there to root him on to one of his greatest victories on the felt.
Baker then explained how he’d been blessed for each of his bracelets to have huge significance.
“They all have their own thing," he said. "The first one (2012 $2,500 8-Game), I beat a good friend of mine (Greg Mueller), and that was the ‘get the monkey off your back.’ Now looking back, I hadn’t really been in it that long, even though I felt like it at that time.”
“The second one (2019 $1,500 Limit Hold ‘em) came on the heels of me winning the LAPC, so it was kind of cool because it was the only summer I actually ever did side bets on bracelets and stuff. And also, I grew up playing limit hold ‘em, so that one’s kind of special because of that.”
“The third one (2023 $1,500 Razz), that one really felt special because a few years earlier, I had been heads-up and I had a 30-1 chip lead, and I ended up losing, and then I came back in the same event and I got down similar, so getting that one was big.”
“All three of those, they weren’t big money; they were all about the bracelet. This one, it’s about the bracelet — anybody who knows anything about me knows I covet this stuff, and I love the World Series. But it’s also about the money. This was a big prize.”
Baker's biggest WSOP cash and second of all-time
The $646,845 that Baker earned for his victory was the most he’d ever won in a WSOP event and his second-most in any event, behind only the $1,015,000 he won for the aforementioned 2019 WPT LAPC Championship.
He entered the day as the chip leader, but it wasn’t long before the player he said was unquestionably his toughest opponent at the final table, Chuanshu Chen, took the lead, while Baker was down to the short stack. It was at this time that Baker relied on lessons from a 2023 third-place finish in the $10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Single Draw Championship won by Chris Brewer to regroup and refocus.
“Today I woke up thinking of Chris Brewer, and I just tried to think about how he acted when he was shorter and how he combated me and the mistakes that I made versus him, and I was like, ‘Okay, if I get in this situation again, I’m not going to make those mistakes, and if I get to the spot where Brewer was, I’m not going to get rattled and desperate because that’s the example he showed me.”
Baker fought back to get to heads-up play against Chen, coming into their final duel only slightly behind in chips. But from there, Baker put on a masterclass, quickly taking a chip lead he would never relinquish until the bracelet was his.
“I’ve never played heads-up poker like I did today versus Chen," Baker told us. "I saw what I thought I could do to best give myself a chance to win. I knew my strengths and what I thought I was better at than him. I told everybody that I thought he was the toughest player at the final table coming into it and that I hoped to get heads-up versus anybody else. But now that I’ve won, I’m kind of glad it was him, because that dude’s good. That guy’s a good poker player.”
Fantasy poker – Baker proud to give back
With his eyes still moist with emotion as he graciously spoke to us for almost 20 minutes, we decided to lighten the mood for him a bit and transition the questioning to something lighter that he’s still very proud of — his involvement with fantasy poker.
“I think it’s just been such a huge positive for the World Series," Baker said. "You have people firing things and trying because they get drafted. They want to make the people that had confidence in them proud, and that’s cool because I had a lot to do with that. I know that Daniel (Negreanu) built the $25K, but I think I’ve helped promote that, and my league (ODB Fantasy) has kind of added to it. I’m proud to give back to the poker world, which has given me everything.”
On Sunday, it was Baker who was making his fantasy owners proud, as the crew who drafted him was right there on the rail to cheer him on to the bracelet.
"Team Australia was here sweating me, and I think that’s cool, to get the fantasy points for it, but they were sweating ME. They were rooting for ME, not just for the fantasy points. They drafted me because they have faith in me, because they like me, and that made me happy.”
While this event unfortunately doesn’t count for any WSOP Player of the Year points, Baker will still be back playing every day for the rest of the series, chasing the next bracelet, more prize money, and the glory of the WSOP that he so loves.
But not before a well-earned and rare break, both to enjoy today’s win and to figure out what to play next.
“I’m going to take this afternoon off, and then I’ve got to decide what I want to play," he said. "I won a Seniors bracelet, and I’ve won a Razz bracelet, and they’re both tomorrow, so I’ve got to figure out which one I want to play.”
