Eric Baldwin Gets His Revenge; "Slowrolls" Matt Waxman With Aces in WSOP Event #14
On Tuesday, Matt Waxman defeated Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin in an epic heads-up battle to win his first gold World Series of Poker bracelet.
Event #7, the $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em event, drew 1,837 players, but in the end it was veteran pros Waxman and Baldwin fighting for the hardware and $305,000. It took 187 hands and nearly seven hours for a winner to be determined, and Waxman eventually denied Baldwin of his second WSOP bracelet.
Amazingly, two days later, the two met again, this time in the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em event.
As if 7 hours of heads-up play wasn't enough of seeing @Matthew_Waxman's ugly mug across the table from me http://t.co/oXH6XeFhmB
— Eric Baldwin (@basebaldy)
"I initially thought, 'Oh c'mon, really,'" Baldwin told PokerNews during a break on Thursday. "There weren't any negative emotions towards the situation but I was definitely amused by it. Matt and I are friends. I told him after the final hand of heads-up that I was happy for him and I truly meant it. I would have rather it been me but I was genuinely happy for him. Seeing him again was more funny than anything else."
About the same time Baldwin was posting about his run-in with his former opponent, Waxman was on the other end posting a similar Tweet.
Just got moved to a new table in the $1500 and this is the first face I see. #CantBreathe @basebaldy @Bhanks11 http://t.co/aAwctIYHU3
— Matthew Waxman (@Matthew_Waxman)
As if seeing each other after such a short period of time wasn’t enough, the two faced off in a big hand which resulted in Baldwin semi-slowrolling Waxman with aces.
Picked the wrong tourney to bust @Matthew_Waxman in. Got to slowroll him with aces too cuz there was a player behind me :) #gg #ShowersBud
— Eric Baldwin (@basebaldy)
Wouldn't normally tweet my bust hand, but got down to 15 BBs and ran QQ into @basebaldy AA. Pretty funny stuff.
— Matthew Waxman (@Matthew_Waxman)
Baldwin commented further about the hand, telling PokerNews, “I opened to 800 I think it was, and the third wheel in the hand three-bet me and Matt shoved out of the big blind for like 5,700. He ended up having queens and of course I wanted to appear weak to the guy that three-bet me because if he ended up having a hand like pocket nines through queens then he calls me in that spot. That was my intent to look weak so I didn’t just snap-shove it in. I wasn’t doing it with any ill intent; I was doing it to try to get more chips in the pot. Then I joked afterwards that I slowrolled him. It was a fun situation.”
Once Waxman saw Baldwin’s aces, his reaction was instantly, "That’s it!"
Revenge is a dish served cold, but according to Baldwin, revenge wasn't his intention. "I’m not a vengeful person," said Baldwin. "If we played heads-up again it would be great because that would mean were in it for another bracelet but I at all don’t feel I need to seek revenge on Matt. We both understand that the match could have gone either way so I don’t at all feel I have something prove."
We asked Baldwin what his reaction would be if he and Waxman were to meet again heads-up for a bracelet this summer.
"I mean that would just be even more absurd," Baldwin replied. "We would obviously have to laugh about it. Honestly, I don’t think we'd bring that many reads into it because I think we were so damn exhausted by the end of the last event that we don’t remember anything at all. We weren't thinking clearly, just operating at primitive level.”
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