David Baker Bonus Reflects on 11-Year History of the $500 ODB Fantasy League

There’s no denying that the World Series of Poker (WSOP) experience has been amplified thanks to the advent of fantasy poker. The Daniel Negreanu 25K Fantasy League, which debuted back in 2011, is in its 14th year, while the complimentary $500 ODB League, run by David “ODB” Baker and his wife, Nicole, is in its 11th year.

“The creation of 25K Fantasy is easily one of the best additions to poker I can remember. It brings a real team element to the WSOP and turns those long, grueling hours into something special,” poker pro Matt Vengrin recently shared on social media. “Getting to build camaraderie with people you’d normally never cross paths with adds a whole new layer of fun competition. And [ODB] pulling off the draft at a price point where the public can actually jump in and enjoy a summer-long sweat is absolutely brilliant.”

Indeed, this year’s ODB League is the biggest and best, with a massive 1,202 teams that each ponied up $500 to create a $601,000 prize pool. The top 100 teams will get pair a minimum of $1,000, while the winning team will earn a $100,000 top prize.

Earlier this month, ODB sat down with Donnie Peters on the PokerGO Podcast in which he opened up about his passion for poker, playing against the best players in the world inside the PokerGO Studio, and the history of the ODB Fantasy League.

You can listen to that episode in full here, but in the meantime, here are some highlights.

The Growth of the ODB League

“When I started this thing, I obviously never envisioned this, but as it’s become such a part of the World Series, I feel an obligation to continue it,” ODB shared when the $500 league became a point of conversation. “It’s kind of my giving back a little bit to the community.
They love it, and I love it.”

So, when and how did the ODB league start in the first place? According to Baker, 11 years ago, he was driving to Las Vegas from Houston with his good friend, Ray Henson, when an idea became reality.

“We would drive 24 hours, and we would always drive on the day that they were doing the draft. We would listen to the live coverage and always hoping that we would be drafted and how much and all that,” ODB explained. “We were driving one year, it was 11 years ago, and I said, ‘Man, these people are terrible at this.’”

That led to ODB posting on Twitter asking if anyone wanted to make teams and do some side bets. There was a lot of interest, so instead of betting one-on-one, he made the decision to start a league. For that first year, his wife, Nicole, built and managed an Excel spreadsheet and manually entered every team.

“It was like literally an idea that I had, and 24 hours later, we had 94 entries,” ODB reflected. “I had built like a new e-mail account to take the emails and the whole thing, and she manually scored it in an Excel spreadsheet for 94 people. And then it’s built up through the years. Last year, we had 870 people, and this year, 1,200 entries.”

It has also graduated from a spreadsheet to being a part of 25KFantasy.com, which allows players to easily see where they stack up and how their roster is doing. Similarly, PokerNews even created an “ODB Bonus Player” badge for those undrafted players who are eligible to be bonus players.

Here’s how you can check up on the ODB Bonus Players in the PokerNews live updates:

ODB on Wanting to Be Among the Best

ODB and Peters also discussed their shared love of the game, and the former’s desire to be considered among the best players in the world. While some would say he already is with four WSOP gold bracelets to his name and more than $9.3 million in lifetime tournament earnings according to the Hendon Mob, ODB doesn’t consider himself there yet.

“I have this complex that like, I want to be considered one of the elite players and [my wife is] just like, ‘Well, you are.’ I’m like, no, I’m not,” said ODB, who also has a World Poker Tour (WPT) title. “People don’t think about me the way that they think about some of the other guys, and rightfully so. They’re better, they’re more accomplished. But I want to fit into that. I want to be in the discussion when, you know, Hall of Fame comes up, legacy, and those kinds of things.”

It’s that desire that’s inspired ODB to start playing more inside the PokerGO Studio against the best players in the world.

“It’s what drives me, and so that’s what I need. I’m just going to harness that as my motivation,” said ODB, who also revealed that he learns best by watching. “I’m really good at reverse engineering hands. A lot of people learn, you know, from front to back. I kind of learn back to front … What I do, my approach to poker is more like I watch good players play and I see the things that they do and I try to figure out why they did that. How would I combat that? And also, how do I bring that into my own game? … That’s kind of been my approach to poker. That’s kind of why I really like playing with some of these best players.”

While Baker might be a little hard on himself, as many would say he’s already among poker’s elite, there’s no denying that, when it comes to poker, few have more heart than ODB.

Here’s a look at the current Top 10 ODB Fantasy standings as of 6/22/26:

PR & Media Manager for PokerNews, host of both the PokerNews Podcast & MPST Podcast Presented By PokerNews, and 2013 WSOP Bracelet Winner.