Jamie Gold Admits to Wrong Doing in WSOP

Jamie Gold has finally admitted that some of his antics at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) were questionable, though unintentional.

Even though Gold held the chip lead from day four and the entire duration of the final table, there have been question marks and criticism from fans and commentators about his tactics during the WSOP. 

One flash point was at the final table where Gold flashed one of his cards (a face card) while his opponent was pondering a move. Needless to say his opponent folded and Gold won another hand. Nothing was made of it at the time, but many fans and commentators believed that he should have been given a 10 minute penalty at the time.

Gold maintains though that he didn’t intentionally do anything wrong but did express regret. Speaking to the New York Times, Gold said: “You should never flash a card. I wasn’t thinking: ‘Wow, I’m going to bend the rules here.’ I was just caught up in the excitement of what was happening and I kind of lost myself and I regret doing that.”

In the interview Gold also admitted to protecting his friend Lee Kort, who busted out to Gold. Gold said: “I basically told a friend of mine (Kort) what I had because I didn’t want him to bust out and that was also really inappropriate. I’m going to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

During the hand Gold held A-J with Kort holding Q-J on a board of 4-J-7 (all diamonds). Gold told his friend he held “top-top” indicating top pair, top kicker. Kort claimed the same and Gold called Kort’s all in bet. Kort’s hand didn’t improve and Gold busted his friend. Much of the controversy came with how Gold acted during this hand. He looked visibly dismayed as Kort flipped over his hand and before then gave some strange looks to his friend as if to communicate something.

Even though this was seen as controversial by many, Gold did not indicate the strength of his hand until after Kort had gone all in. However with Gold finally admitting he was trying to protect his friend it would seem to open up the debate and suggest collusion. Gary Thompson, WSOP spokesman said: “Technically it can be construed as collusion as it’s clearly a violation of the rules.”

It seems that Jamie Gold’s 2006 WSOP win will always be remembered for the controversy rather than the poker.