If there is anything sure to prevent people from reading a post, I’m guessing this title will do it. Still, I’ll push forward to see if anyone can help me figure out some stuff. But let me begin with my take regarding the Jamie Gold situation.
Well, this is a mess, pure and simple. Here, we have the biggest winner in the history of poker without one nickel of his winnings as Harrah’s still has the entire $12M. My take on all this:
- Gold caused this himself. I won’t play psychoanalyst here, but he constantly said that he would take care of his friends after he won. Crispin Leyser (see above) was constantly in Gold’s crew early on that included a few big bodybuilder-type friends and a Bodog guy. His mom and girlfriend Ashley Lynn joined the audience late. If Gold promised half of the winnings in exchange for getting celebrities to play and wear the Bodog logo, it would be fairly normal proceedings in poker. People are constantly backing and exchanging pieces of folks, and Harrah’s would handle that often during the cashout period.
- Gold will lose a big chunk of change. If he’s balking at splitting the cash 50/50, then I’d assume he’ll lose some piece through legal fees regardless of the outcome. $12MM is more than $6MM obviously, but it will diminish no matter the outcome.
- Bodog loses. What a horrible start to this new reign, here’s the winner of the WSOP Main Event bracelet who theoretically won $12MM but doesn’t have any of it. Bodog should be in the midst of a major marketing initiative as these ESPN episodes roll out, but instead they’re having to factor in this mess.
- Will this impact the ESPN editing? We’re all wondering how ESPN will spin Gold, as a new great player who navigated the waters well and played his big stack masterfully or as a luckbox who got hit over the head with the deck. Now, the question is will ESPN’s production be impacted by this controversy at all. I’m assuming this could be great for ratings, and certainly they have footage of Leyser as I saw him constantly there at the end. It could probably help things more than hurt things if they play Gold up as some smarmy charlatan (I don’t know if that’s a word or spelled correctly).
- How long will this go on? If it doesn’t get resolved amicably, that money could be sitting in Harrah’s vault this time next year, no doubt about it.
Let me know your thoughts or if anything is missing. OK, where I need some help (in no particular order):
- Bloglines: Sloe tried to help me with this to no avail. My problem is alot of readers still have me linked to my blogspot account, so it is harder to find me. It’s getting better, but sloe indicated that I could register my blog on bloglines or something, but I’ve yet to figure it out. More because of my simple-mindedness than anything.
- Ideas for new series: The Relationships & Poker and Children & Poker series were very well received, so I’d like to get ideas of the next big thing for me to tackle. Let me know if you have any thoughts on this.
SWAG ALERT: I’m planning to send out final swag package, so the first to leave a comment and email me at csquard@gmail.com gets the last swag. Thanks, and have a great weekend.
SWAG!!!!
From what I\’ve read of this situation, it seems Gold was and is still promising to give this other guy half of his winnings after he gets the 12 million from Harrah\’s. Does the other guy not trust him to do this? I can\’t even imagine how either one of them was stupid enough to let this become a public fiasco, considering that it was wildly in both of their best interests to settle it quickly, and immediately, among themselves.
From what I’ve read Leyser has a voice mail from Jamie before the final table stating over and over that he’ll get what he was promised, however I’ve read that now Jamie is trying to go back on that agreement. I also agree it is a stupid move on both their parts to play this out in public.