23-year-old wins WSOP lowball title for $294,314

David Baker won the $10,000 buy-in No-Limit Deuce-to-Seven Draw Lowball championship at the World Series of Poker in the early-morning hours on Saturday to claim a WSOP gold bracelet and $294,314.

Baker topped one of the toughest and most experienced fields ever assembled for any WSOP event. About half of the 101 players who entered were former WSOP gold bracelet winners.

"It makes me feel really good that I could do this," said Baker. "I never thought I would be playing against them. But it was really special."

The 23-year-old professional poker player from Bloomfield Hills, Mich., is enjoying a breakthrough year, having previously finished sixth at the $50,000 buy-in Poker Players Championship. Baker started playing seriously while in at Michigan State University and gradually improved to the point he was making a living at the game, mostly toiling away in online poker games.

"The WSOP gold bracelet gives real meaning to claiming you are a poker pro," said Baker, who moved to Florida after leaving Michigan State. "Now, when I say I'm a professional poker player, it has real meaning."

While living in Florida, Baker enjoyed his first major cash when he won $30,000 in 2006. He invested more time and energy in improving his game and has been playing professionally ever since.

The runner up was Eric Cloutier, a former minor-league hockey player, who won $181,886. Cloutier now owns a sports bar in Lafayette, La., and plays many WSOP Circuit events.

George Danzer, from Munich, Germany, was third for $115,295, while John Juanda, a Las Vegas-based poker pro and four-time WSOP bracelet winner, finished fourth in his third final table of the Series.

Doug Booth, from Bowling Green, Ky., was fifth, eight-time gold bracelet winner Erik Seidel was sixth, and Eric Kesselman was seventh. Seidel now has 59 career cashes at the WSOP to sit in fourth place on the all-time cashes list, behind Phil Hellmuth, Men "the Master" Nguyen, and Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, and he has a least one cash at the WSOP for the last 20 years.

Other former WSOP gold bracelet finishers who cashed in this event include Daniel Negreanu (eighth place) and Yan Chen (12th). Chen has now cashed in the last three Lowball Deuce events held at the WSOP. He won his first gold bracelet last week in Event #14, which was a Lowball Deuce event.

Modified from notes provided by Nolan Dalla for www.wsop.com