So ESPN finally aired the final table of the World Series of Poker main event last night and I have to say that Jamie Gold is the most irritating person to win it since Hellmuth. Unlike Gold, however, Hellmuth is a really good poker player. No matter who wins the championship, there's a fair amount of luck involved, but holy crap - when they said Jamie Gold had a horseshoe up his butt during the tournament, they weren't kidding. The guy was hitting gutshot straights and runner runner flushes, winning hand after hand where he was a 3-1 or 4-1 underdog going in. And to make it doubly annoying, he never shut up the entire time. And since the tournament ended, he's been on a world tour of ego indulgence. Unlike Greg Raymer and Joe Hachem, this guy really thinks he invented the game of poker. I will make a prediction: this guy never wins a major tournament again, ever. He'll never get a string of luck like that, and without it he doesn't stand a chance.
- Log in to post comments
Yeah - one can only hope he keeps his promise to use some of the money to make his father more comfortable (he's dying from ALS).
The curious thing about the hands they showed on TV was Gold seemed to be faily honest about his own hand, but his opponents just couldn't bring themselves to believe him and assumed he was bluffing. Of course, we only saw a percentage of the hands so it's impossible to tell if he consistently worked that way.
I am surprised no one figured out a tell from all his antics at the table. He body language appeared to me to be quite different depending on the strength of his hand. But I suppose it is easier when you know what he has :-)
I've got a better prediction. Next season on High Stakes Poker (yes, he was invited), he will be......well....
I actually deleted the last three recordings of the WSOP unwatched because I just couldn't stomach the guy. If he really does appear on High Stakes next season, I imagine the real pros are literally salivating. He's exactly the kind of brash player you can make a fortune off of.
I wonder what the over-under is on how much of that $12 million he loses in cash games over the next year.
At least Hellmuth's antics make me laugh after I shout out, "what an asshole", at the TV. This guy made me stop watching the WSOP this year, as I could not see watching someone who doesn't know how to play say bad things about the others at the table that knew what they were doing. I am an OK, but not great, poker player, and I think I could beat him most of the time.
I think you're right, Jeff. Barry Greenstein and that gang must be licking their chops in anticipation at getting him into a high stakes cash game.
I predict that by next year, all TV poker will be cancelled, replaced by some other, less numbingly boring table-game ... maybe, dominoes.
You do know that one of the sports channels (either ESPN 2 or Fox Sports) covered a dominoes tournament recently. I tried to watch it, but it was far too dull for a TV sport.
Jamie Gold did make the WSOP painful to watch, but not that painful.
You can never be certain what will catch on as a TV sport. In the UK, back in the 1970s, the BBC only used to show half-an-hour of snooker a week. Then they provided expanded coverage of a couple of tournament and, all of a sudden, millions of people were watching wall-to-wall snooker coverage late on into the night.