Gold mines advice from poker legend
Less than 30 minutes before he was due at the table to begin his last push toward the final table of the main event at the World Series of Poker, Jamie Gold of Paramus was spending quality time with a man who's been there.
"Right now I'm with Johnny Chan and we're talking things over," Gold said by phone Tuesday from his hotel room at the Rio in Las Vegas. "He's giving me a lot of good insight."
Gold would be hard-pressed to find a better source of knowledge. Chan is the last person to win back-to-back main event titles and shares the WSOP career record of 10 wins with Doyle Brunson and Phil Hellmuth.
And as the field played down from 27 to nine players Tuesday, whatever Chan said was working.
Gold quickly eliminated two players in the first 90 minutes and increased his tournament-leading chip stack to $19.6 million.
He continued to accumulate chips and had over $31 million with 12 players remaining as action went on late Tuesday. After a day of rest, the nine players left will vie at the final table beginning at 3 p.m. Thursday, with all guaranteed to be millionaires.
For the 36-year-old Paramus High School graduate, being in position to capture the biggest title and payout in poker ($12 million to the winner) isn't a total surprise.
"People were referring to me as the best minor league player out there," said Gold, who plays three times a week in the biggest cash game at Los Angeles' Commerce Casino and has won a lot of minor tournaments at L.A. casinos.
The key for Gold was hooking up with Chan two years ago, when Gold was representing him as a Hollywood talent agent.
"He started training me," Gold said. "He believed in me. He told me I could win this."
That belief has translated into self-confidence for Gold.
"If I play my best and the cards fall my way, I know I can win this," he said.
But Gold, who took command of the tournament Saturday, is well aware of the pitfalls ahead.
"They've been telling me nobody's ever done what
I'm trying to do: going all the way after having taken the lead so
early.
"It's mine to lose, which is really unfortunate in a way. Because if
I don't win, then everyone will be disappointed."
Gold, who said the number of hours he's played since the main event
began July 28 has exhausted him, has a big rooting party at the Rio.
"It's around 27 people," Gold said, including his mom Jane, who
arrived Tuesday night from Paramus. His best friend from senior year,
Mitch Abrams, is headed out if he makes Thursday's final table.
"Whatever he's been doing, he just needs to keep doing it," she said.
In addition, Gold said he's heard from people he hasn't been in
contact with for more than 20 years.
But what's made the experience bittersweet for Gold is that his
father, Dr. Robert Gold, is confined to his Paramus home with ALS.
"The fact that he can't be here with me is sad," Gold said. "He's
been so amazing to me that it would be so nice to be able to give
something back to him."
His father, a retired dentist, also is one of the reasons he's
closing in on an enormous payday.
"I wanted to move back full time, but then he felt like the pressure
was on him to go," Gold said. "He didn't want it to feel like the
end. He begged me to continue living my life.
"But I made him promise that when it's the last year or six months
that I can come home and stay until the end."
| WSOP 2006 | ||
| Rank | Name | Winnings |
| 1 | Jamie Gold | $12,000,000 |
| 2 | Paul Wasicka | $6,102,499 |
| 3 | Allen Cunningham | $4,123,310 |
| 4 | Aaron Kanter | $3,628,513 |
| 5 | Rhett Butler | $3,216,182 |
| 6 | Richard Lee | $2,803,851 |
| 7 | Douglas Kim | $2,391,520 |
| 8 | Erik Friberg | $1,979,189 |
| 9 | Dan Nassif | $1,566,858 |
