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The Numbers Behind Bobby Baldwin’s 1978 Main Event Win
He defeated Crandall Addington heads-up, earning $210,000—half the $420,000 pool—from 42 entries, with all five payouts reconciled.
Bobby “The Owl” Baldwin won the 1978 World Series of Poker Main Event, defeating Crandall Addington heads-up. Baldwin collected $210,000—exactly half of the $420,000 prize pool—from an official field of 42 entries.
Bobby Baldwin won the 1978 WSOP Main Event
The tournament record identifies Baldwin as the winner of Event #11, the $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em Main Event–World Championship.
| Tournament fact | Official record |
|---|---|
| Winner | Bobby Baldwin |
| Event | Event #11: $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em Main Event–World Championship |
| Venue | Binion’s Horseshoe Casino, Las Vegas |
| Dates | May 16–21, 1978 |
| Entries | 42 |
| Prize pool | $420,000 |
| First prize | $210,000 |
Baldwin was widely known as “The Owl.” An archived Poker Player Press biography confirms both the nickname and his 1978 championship, while also placing the victory within his wider career. For the event dates, field and payouts, the official WSOP results provide the stronger tournament record.
The official results and payout arithmetic
The official WSOP results record five paid finishers:
| Place | Player | Payout | Pool share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bobby Baldwin | $210,000 | 50% |
| 2 | Crandall Addington | $84,000 | 20% |
| 3 | Louis Hunsaker | $63,000 | 15% |
| 4 | Buck Buchanan | $42,000 | 10% |
| 5 | Jesse Alto | $21,000 | 5% |
Baldwin recalled a field of 43 players in a later TulsaPeople interview. For reporting the tournament’s numerical record, 42 is the appropriate figure because that is the official entry count and it reconciles with the listed prize pool. The discrepancy is best treated as a difference between the recorded result and a retrospective memory, not as proof that either source was describing precisely the same measure.
The runner-up’s name also varies in later coverage. Several retrospectives use “Crandell,” but the official results list Crandall Addington. The official spelling is used here because the subject is the recorded tournament result.
What can be said about the heads-up finish
Baldwin defeated Addington heads-up to secure the championship. The official result page establishes their first- and second-place finishes, but it does not include a hand history or betting transcript.
Later accounts agree on the central cards: Baldwin held pocket queens, Addington held pocket nines, and both players made sets. Baldwin’s three queens beat Addington’s three nines. A Card Player retrospective of the 1978 tournament reports those holdings and the higher-set finish, but it was published three decades after the event rather than as a contemporaneous tournament record.
The exact sequence is less secure. Retrospectives give the same five board ranks—ace, king, queen, ten and nine—but differ on their order. They also disagree about when the decisive chips entered the pot. Those conflicts make a street-by-street reconstruction more precise than the evidence allows.
The useful summary is correspondingly narrow: Baldwin’s pocket queens prevailed over Addington’s pocket nines after both hands improved to sets. That result explains the showdown without turning a disputed retrospective narrative into an official hand history.
Why the victory mattered in 1978
Baldwin was 28 when he won and became the youngest WSOP Main Event champion at that time. Stu Ungar surpassed that mark by winning the Main Event in 1980, so Baldwin’s distinction was an important historical record rather than a permanent one. The WSOP profile of Baldwin records both the youngest-champion distinction and Ungar’s subsequent 1980 victory.
The payout structure was another defining feature of the 1978 result. The Main Event had previously operated under a winner-take-all format, but in 1978 five places received official payouts. Baldwin consequently won the championship without taking the entire prize pool.
A four-bracelet run and a second career
The Main Event championship was the centerpiece of four bracelet victories across three consecutive WSOP editions:
| Year | Bracelet victory |
|---|---|
| 1977 | $10,000 No-Limit Deuce-to-Seven |
| 1977 | $5,000 Seven Card Stud |
| 1978 | $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em Main Event |
| 1979 | $10,000 Deuce-to-Seven |
Baldwin won the two 1977 events on consecutive days, added the world championship in 1978 and won the $10,000 Deuce-to-Seven event again in 1979. That gives him a compact measurable record: four bracelets in three WSOP editions, with the Main Event title positioned between two years of victories in other formats.
The WSOP profile also identifies Baldwin as a 2003 Poker Hall of Fame inductee. The induction recognizes a career extending beyond the single Main Event result, but the four-bracelet timeline shows how concentrated his tournament success was: every bracelet came between 1977 and 1979.
Baldwin later moved away from full-time poker and built a senior career in casino management, including work at the Golden Nugget. That second career is relevant context, but it does not alter the tournament arithmetic that defines his best-known poker result.