On this week’s edition of the ESPN.com poker news program “Inside Deal,” UB.com pro Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin joined the set throughout the duration of the episode. Featured was discussion of Days 1C and 1D of the 2010 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event, which aired on Tuesday night on ESPN.
Baldwin sported his trademark mustache during the show and told ESPN “Inside Deal” hosts Laura Lane, Bernard Lee, and Andrew Feldman why he chose to rock the distinctive facial hair: “It’s impossible to have a bad day when you have a mustache because you look in the mirror and laugh at yourself.” Baldwin was not armed with a mustache during the 2010 WSOP Main Event.
Why did he choose to play on the third starting day of poker’s most prestigious tournament? Why not enter on the relatively sparse first day or the wildly populated Day 1D, which sold out last year? Baldwin provided the following insight: “Day 1D – I didn’t want to deal with the biggest crowd. It’s an absolute circus there. At the same time, I felt like a lot of soft players are leaving their day jobs to come out to Las Vegas to play in the Main Event, so they’re going to choose one of the later starting days to miss fewer days of their home jobs.” Days 1C and 1D each attracted over 2,300 players.
ESPN cameras showed Baldwin sparingly during coverage of Day 1C; one of his longest spots on the small screen came as he folded a hand. Baldwin stressed the importance of not forcing yourself to be in the spotlight of Day 1 of the WSOP Main Event: “The important thing is not to press because it’s such a good structure and such a long tournament that if you try and force something, you’ll be kicking yourself out the door.”
Following the discussion of the WSOP, major gambling and sports scandals were reviewed. The b-roll segued to the UB.com scandal, which resulted in over $22 million being paid to players by September 2009. WickedChops’ Steve Preiss was brought in via phone: “Russ [Hamilton’s] story that he told to the senior-ups that started Ultimate Bet was that he wanted to be able to have an auditing tool that could see hole cards to enable him to catch cheaters on the site… Eventually, the tool was modified so that he could go into ‘God Mode’ and actually see hole cards.”
Priess also assessed whether poker pro Freddy Deeb was intricately involved in the cheating or merely a bystander: “A lot of people came to Russ requesting money to play high-stakes games online. People would go to Freddy, knowing he was tight with Russ, and request funds. Did Freddy not know this was dirty money? Who knows? What we do know is that Freddy was not, at this stage, tied to being a superuser himself.” UB.com, then known as Ultimate Bet, was a high-stakes hot spot prior to the action moving to Full Tilt.
Baldwin’s start in poker entailed diligent dissection of books, including the “Harrington on Hold’em” series, which he claimed was the most influential read: “I consider myself to be a book guy or a study guy. I legitimately took a couple of poker books, took notes on them, and treated them like textbooks. I definitely put some hard work into it and luckily it’s paid off.” Baldwin won his first bracelet in 2009 in a $1,500 No Limit Hold’em tournament, getting the proverbial monkey off his back and banking $592,000.
Baldwin is one of the most free-spirited players you’ll meet. We’ve known him long before he was highly successful. Amazingly, he has remained completely down to Earth. The UB.com pro admitted, “I can’t believe it when people say what a grind [poker] is or how burnt out they are. To me, it’s so enjoyable every day. You get up and go in to play a game with eight or nine interesting characters at your table. To me, that’s not a grind. To me, that’s fun and I feel incredibly fortunate to do that for a living.”
Finally, given the theme of this week’s “Inside Deal,” Baldwin revealed why he signed with the embattled site as opposed to a competitor like PokerStars or Full Tilt: “I like the challenge it represented of being able to rebuild from a checkered past and help them grow. They cleaned house, re-branded the whole site, and I really like the direction everything is headed. It’s exciting to be a part of.”
Rounding out the show was a review of the new live poker laws in Florida, which went into effect back on July 1st. Catch “Inside Deal” featuring Bernard Lee, Laura Lane, and Andrew Feldman every Tuesday on ESPN.com.