Mister Holdem

The Call of the 2006 WSOP Tournament

Jamie Gold Recalls the Crucial Hand

On day 1 was the hand, I was down to less than 5,000 at the dinner break, didn't think I was going to make it, but I got a few hands and didn't get cracked. I had gone all in six times early with the best of it and lost every one, and by some miracle I still had chips. I said to several people in my life that if I get some luck, I am going to destroy this thing, because whatever's happening, I'm still alive even though I'm getting killed. Nothing is going my way. So if things start going my way, I've got a shot, and all of a sudden things started going my way.

So I built it up to 50,000, which is a very respectable first day, and with two hours left I get pocket fours on the button, one guy raises early, another guy re-raises the minimum, and I instantly put him on pocket aces. We each had about 50,000 and for only 2,000 more I call and I think that if I hit a four and nothing else is scary on the board I'm going to bust one of these guys. The flop comes queen-jack-four. A terrible flop for me because it's going to cause me to put all my chips in. While the one guy has pocket aces, the original raiser could easily have pocket jacks or queens. They both check and I bet. Call. Call. Now I'm thinking I'm in a lot of trouble. Next card comes a ten, which puts two diamonds on the board, and if anyone has tens, jacks or queens or ace-king, I'm screwed. Check, check, and I put in a bet of about half the pot and the original raiser moves all in on me.

The guy with pocket aces says, "I can't believe I'm laying down this hand" and I say, "Pocket aces, right?" And he says "Exactly," and throws away his hand.

Now I don't know what to do. I've got a set, but it's bottom set, and there are so many hands that can beat me. Who knows what this guy has? I've never played with him before. So I'm taking a long time and the table's starting to get antsy and I say, "I'm not wasting time, guys, I've got a set…"

And the guy freaks out, calls the floorman on me, and says, "He said what his hand is! His hand is dead." And the floorman says, "First of all, you're all in, he's not changing the action, and even if he said he had a set of fours and turned his hand over, we'd just give him a warning."

And I said, "You know what? I do have a set of fours. Here's my hand," and I turn it over, and I say, "You can give me a warning, but I want everyone to know that I'm not wasting time."

I wanted to get a read on the guy. I'm staring the guy down the whole time and now a huge crowd had gathered and the whole thing is getting crazy.

By this time I still had 35,000 left and I just wanted to quit for the day and be healthy for the second day and not take any chances.

All of a sudden, the guy calls a clock on me, when it was obvious I was going to throw away my hand, and I'd never seen someone more nervous, I don't know why, but it just looked so weird and I looked him in the eye and I said, "I've got you beat!" and I called, and all he had was ace-queen for top pair and a straight draw.

He was drawing to just four outs and I won and I doubled up to over 100,000, I was one of the chip leaders and I just rolled from then on. From Day 3 on I was the chip leader till the end, and I never went all in again. I think I played my big stack perfectly. I never put my chips at risk.

That was "The Hand" of the tournament for me.