Jamie Gold Wins the WSOP Main Event

“I only caught up to people twice in the whole tournament.” OK, not exactly, but Jamie Gold played his big stack to perfection and took the biggest event in the history of poker. $12M richer, he’s now the champion. You’ll hear from many places the incredible luck he had, and it would be easy to just latch onto that and proclaim that he lucked his way into a victory. That’s a disservice to this event and to him. I saw him early as he started building his stack on Day 2, and while he didn’t have a clear view that he would get to the endgame he was an interesting bird even then. “I’m a television producer sponsored by Bodog,” he told me, so I slotted him into the other celebrity types that filled the room.

Jamie Gold 4 August

Jamie Gold said that blueberries won the Main Event for him, and in fact Ben Roberts told me blueberries were the perfect food, this while he ate blueberries. At Johnny Chan’s party. The coach of Jamie Gold. Coincidence? I think not.

Most everyone besides Bodog, Johnny Chan, and his family wanted Jamie Gold to get knocked out. I wanted Allen Cunningham to take the prize, but he was felled by Gold’s sword and by one key laydown that didn’t work out. Richard Lee might have been the man up to the task, but he gave his big stack away with jacks. How did he get them? By Gold’s diligence to set up the time when he could ritualistically limp then shove on the reraise with a big hand. He worked hard on this, believe me. Do I wish someone else would have won? I wish Farha would have won, but then the explosion never would have occurred. I wish Raymer would have won last year, but then we never would have known Hachem. Heck, I wish I wouldn’t have had my aces cracked by Ivan the Terrible with his Ah-Qh in my one WSOP tournament, because maybe I could have one a bracelet, bought into this thing, then let everyone donk their leave around me. The 2006 Main Event for me will be these final things:

• Shove-fests, with everyone shoving like they were playing on Party’s $25 NLHE ring games.
• Jason Strasser in such a great groove until he got totally sucked out on by A-K vs. his A-A.
• These people in the midst of all this; Helena and JimmyT (who’s story I’ll tell, the unemployed guy on a freeroll who cashed) and Bill and Doug and Debra and Rhett and all these people like us and not like us.
• Negreanu, Hachem, and Allen Cunningham.
• Otis, B.J., Mad, Ali, Howard, Wil, Change100, April, the Gutshot guy, the Spanish guy, Justin, all these people that work so hard and get paid so very little.
• Nolan and the gang here.
• Pauly, me new friend who really does this and does it so well.
• Linda, my buddy.

I’ll need to decompress a bit, and I’ll figure out all the swag and where it’s going in the next week.  If I have any left, I’ll let you know.  Take care, and thanks for following stuff here.  I’ll have more probably next week early.