Is Jamie Gold The Most Hated WSOP Poker Champion Ever?

In addition to prize money and a bracelet, winning the WSOP Main Event used to come with respect and honor.  The poker world changed when the number of players skyrocketed in 2004 and continued increasing greatly since.  The title seems to pass from unknown player to unknown player, with massive prizes and instant celebrity status.  Jamie Gold won in 2007 and received more negative gossip and press than any other WSOP champion ever.

Even before he completely dominated the final table at the World Series of Poker in 2006, Jamie was accustomed to the life of a celebrity.  He came into the WSOP as part of a celebrity team sponsored by Bodog.com.  As a talent agent in Los Angeles, he’s worked closely with some folks you’ve probably heard of: Jimmy Fallon, Lucy Liu and Kristin Davis, among many others.

Jamie graduated from the University of New York at Albany with honors and came west to study entertainment law at UCLA.  Jamie had served as an intern at the J. Michael Bloom & Associates Talent Agency in New York and knew, coming to Los Angeles, what he wanted to do.

He rose quickly through the ranks of L.A. talent professionals, working at various high profile agencies, co-founding an agency and then opening his own firm.  In other words, he had a lot on his plate working in one of the busiest cities in the world and succeeding in Hollywood, one of the busiest and fastest changing industries imaginable.  Despite all the balls he had in the air, Jamie managed to work poker regularly into his routine.

Gambling was a part of Jamie’s childhood because his mom played poker and his grandfather was a gin rummy championship.  In addition to living in the atmosphere of card players, Jamie is a poker book-a-holic who reads voraciously. 

Knowing Johnny Chan, whom Jamie met through his entertainment work with the poker industry, probably doesn’t hurt his poker education either.

Surprisingly, Jamie doesn’t play a great deal of online poker.  Before his world championship win Jamie, frequented a number of casinos around and outside of Los Angeles, playing real live poker with real live people.  After his win, he’s played in a number of high profile tournaments…but we’ll get back to that.

The win in 2006 was the biggest win in poker history (and will probably stay that way until the 2007 WSOP) and it shot Jamie, briefly, into the limelight of the poker world.  All champs get that limelight but Jamie had one strapped to his head.  Part of that reason was the fact the he held the tournament chip lead steadily for many days and completely dominated the final table.

Coming into the final showdown, against much better known Paul Wasicka, Jamie had been personally responsible for excusing 5 players from the final table.  After knocking Wasicka to the wayside as well, Jamie won $12 million, a highly coveted bracelet and a ticket to the easy life, right?

Not really.

The glow of a $12 million paycheck for 8 days of poker couldn’t have lasted too long, especially after Jamie found out that he was being sued for half of his winnings.  Bruce Crispin Leyser filed the suit, claiming that he and Jamie had made a deal to split the winnings to compensate Leyser for his help in filling up the rest of the Bodog.com celebrity team.  Jamie had a different take on the situation, obviously, but the lawsuit has been settled for an undisclosed amount.

With the lawsuit out of the way, Jamie could begin focusing on repairing his tarnished image and playing poker as newly crowned world champion.

The image work is necessary for a number of reasons, some fair and some not.  Sitting on the top of a highly competitive field like poker is always going to bring its share of detractors.  He’s been criticized on nearly everything, from his persona and demeanor to his playing style and table etiquette.  His critics have a point on that last note…

When you spend 8-days playing poker with the best (and worst) poker players alive and beat them all, you’re gonna get under some skin.  Jamie added insult to injury by flashing one of his cards to another player at the table which is universally frowned on (to put it mildly.) Had it been seen by the WSOP, Jamie would’ve had to sit out of the game for 10 minutes while the blinds ate away at his chip stacks.  They didn’t see it, he wasn’t penalized.

It was a dumb mistake but nobody was ready to accuse him of cheating necessarily; at least not until the next dumb thing Jamie did during the tournament.  In a pot with a friend who went all in, Jamie basically announced his hand and his friend mistakenly replies that he has the same hand. 

It appears like Jamie was looking for a sign regarding the strength of his friends hand.  Jamie himself has stated repeatedly that he announced his hand to try and keep from busting his friend out.  His buddy did not, in fact, have a matching hand and Jamie did bust him out of the tournament.

Despite being captured for all eternity on video, as per the link above, WSOP officials again weren’t around to catch this indiscretion.  After the fact, the WSOP opted not to penalize Jamie for his errors, understanding his explanation (being caught up with excitement) and accepting partial blame for not having caught them at the time.

The official judgment was that they were mistakes and not attempts at cheating, which is interesting given Jamie’s own statements about why he announced the hand.  It smacks of collusion but, then again, most people who cheat at poker try to do it quietly and invisibly while this all occurred in front of television cameras.

It’s water under-the-bridge at this point, though it will be interesting to see what kind of reception Jamie gets at the 2007 event.

Aside from those two glaring errors, the majority of ill-will towards Jamie seems to come from misunderstandings, assumptions and (of course) human stupidity.  Despite having held the chip lead in the tournament from day 4 on, and despite having personally dispatched nearly every final table opponent people at the final table, Jamie’s playing style has been heavily criticized. 

To some people, Jamie Gold must be the single luckiest poker player on the planet.  There’s no other way to explain the type of dominating display he put on during the tournament if, as many people contend, his skill level wouldn’t let him play his way out of a poker-themed paper bag. 

Then again, most of the loudest critics have never even been to the WSOP…wouldn’t last 10 minutes in the main event…and would only get to sit at the final table if they slipped a security guard $100 after hours.

Of course, in the publicized tournaments in which he’s taken part since he won, Jamie’s performances have been much closer to “dismal” than “dominating,” which hasn’t done much to shut his critics up. 

Neither has the fact that, honestly, he just hasn’t been around that much.  Aside from one tournament, as a favor to Johnny Chan, Jamie kind of disappeared for 3 or 4 months after he won the main event.  This has unleashed tireless babble from people about how unworthy he is to be the ambassador of poker.

During much of that time, Jamie was spending time with his dying father.  Having survived with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) for five-and-a-half years, when most don’t survive past the first year or two, Jamie knew that his time with his dad was fading.  So, he focused on his parent instead of on poker, publicity and press releases.

The result of his focus was negative press and completely botched handling by the people he’d entrusted with handling his image.  The crappy handling resulted in more negative press in a nightmarish public relations cycle.  Jamie has set out recently to undo some of the damage and provide poker with a much more attentive and positive champion.

At least until the next tournament, which begins on June 1, 2007.  Unlike like last year, Jamie wants to enter more than just the main event…but he’ll definitely be in the big one.  Whether or not he even makes the final table, all eyes will be on Jamie Gold to see if he’s really got chops or if he did have a weeks worth of supernatural luck.