Tonight I’ve posted my interview with Doyle Brunson, conducted in a hallway near the Rio’s Amazon Room where, I’m certain, Doyle would have rather have been — playing for his third world title and 11th WSOP bracelet.

The interview got off to a rocky start, as you’ll see. I hadn’t expected to run into him in the hallway, so it all happened pretty quickly. I’m not sure where he was headed, but he gave me a few minutes, all the while leaning on his long cane for support.

I asked if he’d rather sit down to chat, but he said no. He’s probably like me — getting up and down takes more energy than just standing still.

It’s easy to see why people like this guy so much. He’s just down-home friendly, as far as I can tell. Classy. And, though the body’s a little creaky these days, there’s no mistaking the competitive fire that still burns inside.

TWO NEW COLUMNS ALSO POSTED

I also have put up two more LuckyDog columns. These were originally distributed by Creators Syndicate in April.

The first recounts some of the zany things I’ve seen at the poker table in my travels around the country. I think it’s pretty funny. The second answers some readers’ questions.

Hope you enjoy them!

Uncategorized | No Comments »

If timing is everything, Phil Hellmuth may need a new watch.

ESPN began its coverage of the 2006 Main Event on Tuesday, and spent a lot of time showing the vacant seat of Phil Hellmuth, the 10-time bracelet winner who, once again, was running a couple of hours late.

Then the limo arrived and Phil made the long walk to the table and shook everyone’s hand and etc, etc. Yes, he busted out on Day 1, but he should have been gone in two hands if his opponents would have played more aggressively with their dominating hands (Q-Q vs. J-J and A-A vs. K-K.).

What I don’t get is why Phil pulls the late trick. He allows a chunk of his chip stack to be blinded off by arriving so late, which in no-limit poker means that he’s almost guaranteed to be facing taller stacks that could eliminate him if a big hand develops soon after he arrives.

If he started along with everyone else, he wouldn’t be dominated by other stacks right away. And, if he won a decent pot or two early, HE would be in the dominant chip position against most opponents at the table.

But then, if he arrived on time we’d miss the dramatic limo shot…

Uncategorized | No Comments »

The TV listings indicate the WSOP Circuit Event this past January at Tunica is scheduled to air on ESPN tomorrow night (Aug. 15). It ought to be a fun program to watch.

Daniel Negreanu is at his best, talking it up with the players and hamming it up with the crowd. It wasn’t idle chatter, though, as you’ll see.

I sat maybe 20 feet away from Daniel the entire final table and wrote “Daniel the Talker” for my first syndicated column (see link at right).

I think you’ll enjoy the show, and hope you enjoy the column! Check your local listings for the two hours of programming.

Also, I have posted my April 11 column about making deals at the end of a tournament.

Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Jamie Gold will be a terrific ambassador for poker.

He absolutely loves the game, logging 40 hours a week in Los Angeles card rooms near his Malibu home. He will talk poker anytime, anywhere, which is good because he’ll be doing a lot more talking about poker than playing it in the coming year.

He’s disarmingly personable, bright and eloquent — traits which fueled his success as a Hollywood agent, a television show producer, and now a world champion poker player.

Sitting next to $12 million in a monstrous stack of bundled $100 bills, Gold made it through a thousand photos and a dozen interviews during Friday morning’s wee hours. He smiled and said the right thing every time, even though he clearly was exhausted from a grueling two weeks of poker action and a 14-hour final table.

At one point he apologized to a reporter because he was afraid he wasn’t making any sense. He could recall almost nothing that happened during the tournament, and he said winning every poker player’s most coveted prize hadn’t sunk in.

Still, he praised his family, his co-workers, and his friends for supporting him. A dozen of them crowded around him to pose for a photo with the money. He attracted tons of vocal new friends who cheered long and loud during his unbelievable run for the Gold bracelet, which he hooked onto his left wrist right away.

Missing from the picture was his dad, a victim of ALS (known as Lou Gehrig’s disease) who can’t move his body and breathes with a machine’s help. Before the cards were in the air two weeks ago, Gold dedicated his tournament to his father.

His first phone call after the victory at 4 a.m. PDT was to his dad. He got voice mail, instead. That meant he might be sleeping through the night, and that would be a blessing, Gold said.

Functioning with a sleep deficit himself, Gold somehow maintained better focus than any other player. In a dominating performance of epic proportions, Gold surged into the tournament chip lead during Saturday’s round and never relinquished it.

He said he played perfect poker almost the entire tournament. He also was the perfect sportsman at the table. Nobody gave more hugs to defeated opponents than Gold, but then, nobody knocked out more players, either.

He vanquished seven of his eight opponents at the final table himself because no one else could do it. Some opponents spoke later of Gold’s luck, but in the same breath they all said he was a very good player.

All, that is, except Allen Cunningham, the lone pro at the final table who was expected to give Gold a serious challenge despite starting the day at a 3-2 chip disadvantage. Many poker experts considered Cunningham the clear favorite.

When Gold’s suited K-J came in ahead of Cunningham’s pocket 10s at 2:20 a.m. PDT, the pro left the tournament area in a huff and stiffed the assembled press in the nearby media center.

Some said he must have been upset about only finishing fourth and not winning his fourth bracelet. More likely, he was upset because some of these “rubes” at the table simply outplayed him on several key hands.

The amateur players knocked from the final table also were disappointed. They were trying just as hard to win as Cunningham, but still answered every reporter’s question all the same.

One question Gold flubbed, by the way, was how this championship will affect his life. He said he’d be back to work on Monday.

Ha! He’ll be on Leno and Letterman and prime time entertainment shows and speaking at public events and doing phone interviews and commercials and…

He’ll save back time to spend with his family and friends and his dad, but the poker community gets the rest of his appointment book.

Good for us.

Uncategorized | No Comments »

There was no stopping Jamie Gold’s rush to the 2006 World Series of Poker championship!

The tournament chip leader for an unheard-of five straight days needed just four hands heads-up to defeat Paul Wasicka early Friday morning, wrapping up a completely dominating effort.

The “Malibu (CA) Express” eliminated all but one of his final-table opponents himself, stamping an exclamation point on an historic performance and unprecedented event.

The end came at 3:43 a.m. PDT when Gold got his monster chip stack into the pot with the best hand post-flop. He was elated when Wasicka decided, after thinking for a while, to put his remaining chips into the pot with pocket tens.

Unfortunately for Wasicka, Gold was ahead at that point, holding Q-9 and looking at a flop of Q-8-5. A harmless ace and four completed the board, and Gold had vaulted to first place on the all-time tournament money list, thanks to the record-shattering $12 million first-place prize.

Wasicka came from nowhere on Tuesday, when he ranked in 24th chip position out of 27 players, to make the final table. He held on through ups and downs all night long Thursday and into Friday morning when the last card of the tournament was dealt.

Finishing second netted Wasicka $6,102,499 to take back home to Westminster CO, where he has a lifestyle he prefers more than the Vegas scene. “I’m more of a Colorado kind of guy, but I’ll probably come to Las Vegas to compete.”

He said he’s a short-handed specialist at hold’em, a game strength which kept him alive while others were crashing and burning around him on Tuesday and Thursday. He said his poker game “is a collection of ideas from all my buddies, not just my own. I owe them a lot.”

Gold, a Hollywood agent turned TV-show producer, dedicated the victory to his father, a victim of ALS (also called Lou Gehrig’s disease). He said he “dominated every table I played at” during the Series and played “almost perfect poker.”

The long string of players he left in his wake no doubt would agree that his performance was solid Gold.

Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Jamie Gold can’t have any tricks left in his bag of gold dust, can he?

After playing cat-and-mouse with Michael Binger and Paul Wasicka for about an hour, Jamie Gold moved all-in on the flop with his monster stack on only a draw, holding 3-4 offsuit with a board of 6-10-5, two spades.

Binger, who survived multiple all-ins all day long and caught lucky a time or two, just needed to not get unlucky against Gold on this particular hand. He held A-10 for top pair and had bet $3.5 million just ahead of Gold’s all-in raise.

A magical 7 of clubs came on the turn, sending Gold into a victory sprint out of the room, down the hall and into the restroom. He never saw the harmless queen of spades fall on the flop.

Binger’s third-place finish was good for $4,123,310.

Interestingly, Wasicka had called Binger’s pre-flop raise with 7-8 of spades but folded to Gold’s all-in bet after the flop despite having both a straight draw and flush draw. That spade queen on the river would have won the pot for Wasicka had he played.

Either way, Wasicka was destined for at least second place, although he would have been in better position to battle Gold’s monster stack heads-up had he won the three-way pot.

“I wasn’t terribly shocked when the seven came,” said Binger, of Atherton CA. “I’d seen Jamie knock a lot of people out.”

“It was an honor to play with Allen Cunningham, one of the best in the world,” Binger said, adding that “Jamie is a very good player who played his big stack very well.”

The final showdown then, after 8,771 bust-outs, will be between Jamie Gold, who has held the tournament chip lead since Saturday night, and Paul Wasicka, who battled his way to the final table on Tuesday despite an anemic starting stack.

Uncategorized | No Comments »

Jamie Gold took a giant step toward the 2006 World Series of Poker championship about 2:30 a.m. PDT by knocking out the lone pro at the table, Allen Cunningham.

Cunningham posed the biggest threat to overtake Gold when the final table began more than 12 hours ago, but for the past six hours the four-time bracelet winner kept losing ground. When he moved all-in with 10-10, he was in last chip position, down to his final $6 million.

Gold called quickly with K-J of diamonds, sensing the opportunity to pave his way to the title by eliminating the most experienced player at the table. Although Gold was a slight underdog before the flop, his plan worked to perfection.

A flop of K-A-8 brought a rousing cheer from many spectators riding the Jamie Gold runaway train. A 7 and 3 finished the board, sending Cunningham to the rail. He pocketed $3,628,513.

The pot boosted Gold’s chip stack to $62.5 million. All that stood between Gold and the gold bracelet — not to mention the $12 million first prize — were Paul Wasicka ($15 million in chips) and Michael Binger ($12 million).

Cunningham, clearly unhappy with the outcome of his championship bid, walked past the media center, opting, at least for the moment, not to face reporters’ questions.

Uncategorized | No Comments »

Most of the spectators watching this four-handed World Series battle have been in the Amazon room for 12 hours now (since 2 p.m. PDT).

While their ranks have thinned a bit, especially in the outer seating areas served by TV monitors showing the action, spectators still fill the bleachers and platformed guest sections.

And they’re still cheering loudly for their favorite when he wins a hand.

Meanwhile, the players seem to be holding up OK, but maybe a little frayed around the edges. Jamie Gold has folded or telegraphed a fold out of turn twice in the past 10 minutes, and Allen Cunningham stood up in apparent frustration while facing a big raise by Gold. He eventually folded and is down to less than $10 million chips.

The players just went on a break. When they return, the blinds will be increased to $200,000-$400,000.

Uncategorized | No Comments »

Rhett Butler, short-stacked most of the day, put his tournament life on the line with pocket fours. They didn’t hold up against Jamie Gold’s K-J, and shortly before 1 a.m. PDT, the World Series of Poker’s main event was down to four players.

Butler, of Rockville MD, milked his short stack for nearly 11 hours before busting. He said he was happy when both Allen Cunningham and Jamie Gold called his re-raise, but the result brought no smiles for Butler in his first big tournament.

A community board of 6-J-5-2-10 gave Gold top pair and sent Butler, jokingly called “Clark Gable” by announcers during the tournament, back to Maryland with $3,216,182.

His elimination was the first since before the 9 p.m. dinner break. Jamie Gold maintained a stranglehold on the tournament with about $51 million of the roughly $90 million chips in play — more than the other three players combined.

“I’m not that disappointed about not winning the $12 million,” Butler said, “but it is disappointing just getting knocked out of the tournament.”

Butler “sold” nearly 50 percent of himself to various people, but jokingly told the assembled media: “I don’t think I’m gonna pay them now.”

Playing in the main event is a “great experience,” he said, and he recommended it to anyone thinking about giving it a shot. But he added: “It’s a grind. Don’t kid yourself.”

Uncategorized | No Comments »

Jamie Gold may need some Tums after his A-K was outdrawn by Paul Wasicka about 40 minutes after dinner.

Wasicka raised to $800,000 pre-flop and was called by Gold in the big blind. Gold checked a flop of K-Q-2, but Wasicka fired $1.1 million into the pot. Gold was only to happy to raise to $5.1 million.

Wasicka barely hesitated before going all-in with his K-10, and, of course, Gold called in a heartbeat with top pair, top kicker. His trap-check on the flop had worked perfectly.

The crowd roared, however, when the 10 of diamonds hit on the turn, giving Wasicka two pair and the lead, which held up as a harmless eight fell on the end. Gold could only shake his head.

An updated chip count showed Gold down to about $44 million and Wasicka up to $18 million, solidly in second chip position.

Uncategorized | No Comments »