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$12 Million Win at The 2006 WSOP

We all know about the legendary highest-ever WSOP win at the 2006 Main Event when Jamie Gold took the world by storm, winning over $12 million. But do you know how he did it? Let’s take a look at this young lad’s impressive win.

Gold’s interest in poker began as a youngster. His mother, Jane Gold, was a keen poker player, and his grandfather was a champion gin rummy player. Gold’s most serious efforts to improve his recreational poker skills came when he began working with former WSOP main event winners Johnny Chan and Chris Moneymaker on an upcoming television show, and Chan began to mentor him. In 2005, Gold began regularly playing in poker tournaments.

At the 2006 WSOP, Gold maintained a significant chip lead from Day 4 onwards to win the World Series of Poker Main Event (No Limit Texas hold ’em, $10,000 buy-in), outlasting 8,772 other players. Excluding 4th-place finisher Allen Cunningham, Gold had more casino tournament final table finishes than the rest of his final table opponents combined. He eliminated 7 of his 8 opponents at the final table and defeated Paul Wasicka heads-up, earning a record $12,000,000 million.

Gold won the event despite earlier saying that he would prefer to finish second as he felt uncomfortable with the idea of being famous. Gold said he ate blueberries during the play of the 2006 WSOP main event final table and joked in a post-tournament interview that the blueberries were his “brain food” and the reason he won the title. 

Gold’s WSOP win was marked by a weird ability to spur his opponents into either calling his bets when he had an unbeatable hand or folding when he was weak. He consistently told his opponents that he was weak or strong, telling the truth sometimes, and sometimes lying, with the ultimate result of successfully deceiving his opponents most of the time.

Prior to the 2006 WSOP Main Event win, Gold had compiled a solid record in tournament competition, using lessons learned from poker legend and previous two-time WSOP main event winner and owner of 10 WSOP bracelets, Johnny Chan.

Gold’s “table talk”, though both an asset and a source of criticism for his tendency to tell opponents his actual hand during play, was contrary to WSOP rules. In one case at the final table, Gold actually flashed one of his hole cards to an opponent (a face card), creating enough uncertainty that his opponent folded the better hand. However, Gold was never penalized for any rules infraction. Prior to his elimination in the 2007 WSOP, Gold was issued a warning for his tactics.

Since his Main Event victory in 2006, his greatest cash has come in a 2016 World Series of Poker Circuit Event. He finished runner-up in the Los Angeles WSOP Circuit Main Event for $139,820. Keep watching GutshotMagazine.com for similar great poker stories!

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