Travis Baker Wins 2015 WSOP $1,000 Seniors Championship

50-year-old Travis Baker just met the minimum age requirement to participate in the 2015 World Series of Poker $1,000 senior’s no-limit hold’em championship. Luckily for him he did qualify, because the construction manager from Oklahoma found a way through the event’s massive 4,193-entry field to capture the title, the $613,466 first-place prize and his first WSOP gold bracelet.

“I’m just a regular weekend tournament player from Oklahoma,” said Baker after his win. “I saw Moneymaker win in 2003 and since then, I’ve been playing mostly small tournaments
around, like in Choctaw and Hard Rock Tulsa. But I’ve never experienced anything like this.”

His largest prior tournament score was for $9,215 back in 2008, so obviously this six-figure win at the WSOP was quite exciting.

“I’m so overwhelmed right now," he admitted. "For me this is gratifying and satisfying. It’s an exclamation point.”

Baker came into the nine-handed final table with just under five million of the roughly 10.5 million chips in play. It took only 123 hands to go from nine players to two, with Baker holding a lead over Carl Torelli going into the heads-up showdown.

The two didn’t waste any time, clashing on the first hand of one-on-one play. With blinds of 60,000 – 120,000 with a 15,000 ante Baker raised to 560,000 from the button and Torelli, who finished 14th in this event last year, made the call. The flop brought the J75 and both players checked.

The turn was the 5, prompting a 1.5 million bet from Torelli. Baker raised to 4 million and Torelli got all in, flipping up the J7 for top two pair. Baker was ahead with the K10 for a flopped flush, though, and the 3 on the river secured him the pot and the title. Torelli was sent to the rail as the runner up, earning $378,766 for his second consecutive deep run in this event.

Here is a look at the payouts awarded at this final table:

For more coverage from the summer series, visit the 2015 WSOP landing page complete with a full schedule, news, player interviews and event recaps.

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