Jamie Gold is the 2006 World series of Poker champion. His striking success at the no doubt comes as a surprise to most players and casual poker fans, but his WSOP success came on the heels of eight final table finishes in the previous sixteen months, including five at the Bicycle Casino, most notably a first place in a No Limit Hold'em event at the Stars and Stripes tournament series worth $54,000.
Jamie's aggressive big stack play at the WSOP, while holding about 30% of the chips going into the final table play, no doubt was helped by his California experience. Likewise, more than any other player at the final table besides Allen Cunningham, he had considerable live casino experience playing in large field tournaments.
In fact, Jamie had more final table experience than the rest of the WSOP final table players put together, except Cunningham. (Besides his win, he also had a second place at Hollywood Park and a third place finish at the Bicycle Casino.) That is not a small advantage in these large multi-day events, where no matter how many players you eliminate, it always seems like there are more and more moving to your table. A lot of players eventually crack and make a mistake, or after running well above average, all of a sudden think they can dodge bullets for all their stack. Jamie consistently played for a portion of his stack against players who had to commit all of theirs. When this happens, you either win a small pot 100% of the time, or contest a medium (for you) size pot. Aggressive big stack play against the middling sized stacks is required to keep getting through the many players continually thrown at you. You can't sit on your chips in California tournaments -- which tend to start later in the day and have faster structures but with more starting chips than Nevada tournaments.
Prior to his World Championship win, Gold played live poker 40 hours a week at the Commerce, Bicycle and Hustler Casinos near L.A, and almost never competed online. A self-proclaimed poker book junkie, Gold has honed his skills in high stakes cash games over the last several years and has placed in a slew of tournaments in the L.A. area, including in the Bicycle Casino's Stars and Stripes tournament in 2006 where he won first place and $60,000.
Jamie Gold is a Los Angeles, Calif.,-based television producer who got his start in cards while growing up in a competitive household with his poker-playing mother and grandfather, who was a gin rummy champion.
After obtaining his bachelor's degree from the University of New York at Albany, where he graduated with honors, Jamie moved to California in 1991to study entertainment law at UCLA. Having obtained valuable work experience in the entertainment business when he interned at the J. Michael Bloom & Associates Talent Agency in New York City at the age of 16, Jamie immediately found work in L.A. as a talent agent and over the years was an employee of several high profile agencies. He soon became known as the youngest franchised agent in the business, a feat he achieved at the age of 21, and went on to co-found an agency in 1994 and in 1996 started his own firm, JMG Management.
Known around Hollywood for discovering new talent and developing the careers of up-and-coming artists, Gold has worked with actors James Gandolfini ("The Sopranos"), Felicity Huffman ("Desperate Housewives"), Jimmy Fallon ("Saturday Night Live"), Lucy Liu ("Charlie's Angels") and Kristin Davis ("Sex and the City").

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