Youth Can Age You

"I went up and changed clothes," Baldwin said later, "and I decided if Crandall was going to win the other $145,000, he was going to have to call some money."

Meanwhile, a camera crew that had been taping the world championship for a CBS Sports Spectacular segment was becoming despondent over the extra day of play.

"Isn't there some way to speed up the action?" producer Jerry Adler demanded. "This is getting expensive."

Baldwin returned to the television lights in an apple-green sport shirt and slacks, looking fresh and confident. He wore a gold chain around his neck and a gold bracelet around his right wrist. "It's 8:15 p.m. now," he told the complaining television people, smiling as though at some private joke. "I promise you, you'll all be home in bed by 9:15."

No one believed such brashness, reminiscent of Babe Ruth's pointing to the outfield seats in the 1932 World Series, but like Ruth, Baldwin meant business. Early in the betting, he raised $10,000. Addington called. The first three community cards were the queen of diamonds, the 4 of diamonds, and 3 of clubs. Baldwin pushed in another $30,000 worth of chips, apparently chasing a straight or a diamond flush. Then again, he could have held a pair of aces as hole cards. But Addington promptly called the $30,000. Obviously he had a strong hand himself.

The fourth community card was the ace of diamonds—"scary-looking," Baldwin called it. He pushed in one stack of $10,000, then a second stack, and a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth and finally a short stack of $5,000 on top of the rest of them—in short, $65,000 worth, leaving him with only $34,000.

Addington deliberated at length. The poker room became utterly silent. You could hear the glasses clinking at the bar on the far side of the blackjack pit. Addington continued to deliberate. He glanced at the stacks of chips and then at Baldwin for some clue. Was the kid bluffing or not? Addington decided he wasn't and threw away his hand. Smiling like an unconscionable elf, Baldwin raked in the $92,000 pot, while at the same time he made sure to flash his hole cards in Addington's direction. They were the 9 and 10 of hearts. Worthless.

Poker player that he is, Addington showed not a twitch of emotion—but, as Baldwin put it later, "I could feel the steam." On each of the next two deals, Baldwin checked moderately good hands—"bluff catchers," he calls them—and each time Addington fell into the trap, bluffed $30,000 at him and lost. Then, with three 3s, Addington impulsively bet another $30,000 into an obvious straight and lost again. In a matter of about eight minutes, beginning with that $65,000 bluff raise, Baldwin had taken complete control of the game, and the rest was merely mopping up. The end came shortly afterward when Addington pushed all his chips in on a good hand and Baldwin's three queens beat his three 9s. The television crew could go home, and it was not yet nine.

That dramatic World Series victory last May, which gave Baldwin the title of poker champion of the world, was followed this February by a $150,000 no-limit hold 'em win by Huber in the Amarillo Slim Classic at the Las Vegas Hilton. Baldwin is now 28, Huber 32. Baldwin also won the seven-card stud tournament at the Hilton, while Sklansky, now 31, won the razz tournament. So as the 1979 installment of the World Series of Poker got underway at the Horseshoe Casino last Sunday, one fact appeared beyond dispute: the new young poker players were not only able contenders against the old pros, they had suddenly become the guys the rest of the field had to beat.

The young pros are, in general, a breed apart from the men who dominated professional poker for generations. For many of the older players, poker was their way out of poverty and into affluence, success, recognition.