Jamie Gold's controversial play at the WSOP event #56 ($2.5k NLHE) has raised more than one pair of eyebrows on the 2+2 forum, where people are even accusing him of attention-whoring. As soon as the bubble had burst, Gold let know that he had won a sizable sidebet for cashing and immediately dumped his chips to another player.


According to Pokernews' tournament updates, when Gold had made sure of cashing in the event, he said, "Never been so happy to cash in my life. Going out drinking if anyone's thirsty." After this the following hand was played:

Gold raised for 5k and the button called. Flop KQ4, Gold checked, the button bet 4.6k. "Nice hand," Gold said and made the call. The same pattern repeated after the turn fell a 9. This time Gold check-called for 11.2k while complimenting his opponent for a "nice hand". River was a 7 and Gold checked again. His opponent, probably realising by now what was going on, went all-in. Gold made the call and immediately mucked his hand, apparently without ever once even looking at his cards. "I could have had the nuts," Gold joked as he left the table, presumably to go out drinking.

"Total douchebag", "Wow. A true ambassador of the game", and "What a tool" are some of the nicer things that 2+2 readers have to say about Gold. Some are even accusing the 2006 World Champion of attention-whoring with his antics.

There were 195 players remaining in the field and the first place prize was more than $800,000. There is some unverified information that Gold had bet $200,000 with odds 2:1 that he would cash in the event. Apparently his chip dumping is not considered collusion because the other player was not aware of what was going to happen. However, if Gold had no interest in playing for 800k more it would have been much more appropriate to just walk away and leave his stack to be gobbled up by the blinds. Of course, the player who received his chips as a surprise gift had no objections.

Read the 2+2 thread here.