Bobby Baldwin
Bobby Baldwin was born in 1950 and began playing poker with his young friends at the age of 12. Baldwin continued to play poker while attending Oklahoma State University and it was as a sophomore that he and group of friends decided to head to Las Vegas. Although he seemed to be losing everything at first including his entire fund of $5000, he actually managed to obtain a credit of $500 from one casino and by the time he left Las Vegas, he had accumulated more than $180,000.
Bobby Baldwin
Although he lost most of this money over the next few months, Baldwin still felt gambling was where his future lay in particular, playing poker. Luckily he was right in this assumption as he went on to win four World Series of Poker bracelets within three years. One of these bracelets was in the Main Event and at the time he was the youngest player ever to have won a WSOP Main Event a record which he held for two years before it was beaten by Stu Ungar.
Baldwin’s first WSOP bracelet was won in 1977 in the $10,000 Deuce to Seven Draw and he won another bracelet that year in the $5,000 Seven Card Stud event. The following year at the age of 28 he won the $10,000 No Limit Hold’em World Championship and he was back again in 1979 to win the $10,000 Deuce to Seven Draw.
He has won almost a million dollars in tournament prize money and over $600,000 of that came from his 17 WSOP cashes. Baldwin was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2003.
Not only did he have a great career playing poker, but Bobby Baldwin actually moved onto the business side of the poker industry too. He has been the president of many of the top casinos in Las Vegas including The Mirage and The Ballagio. He is now working for the Mandalay Resort Group overseeing various resorts.
