Anyone who watched Jamie Gold's disgusting behavior during the 2006 WSOP knows that on at least two occasions, he violated sacred tournament poker rules.
On one occasion, Gold told an opponent whom he was friends with that he had "top-top" while the action was still open. You can watch that video here. On another occasion, while at the final table, Gold flipped one of his hole cards while the action was still open. Both are rules violations that should have resulted in at least a 10-minute penalty had anyone complained. Unfortunately, no one did.
Today, the World Series of Poker released a statement which says, in part, "The WSOP officials determined from the video review and the discussions with Gold that he did not deliberately attempt to violate the rules and that no penalties would be invoked retroactively for the incidents."
Gold's action was embarrassing, but there's not a whole lot they can do about that now. WSOP commissioner Jeffrey Pollack said, "Not only were we impressed with Jamie’s candor and contrition, but we also recognized that tournament officials didn’t witness the incidents or take appropriate action at the time of the rules infractions. We share culpability in this case and are satisfied that the actions in question were inadvertent mistakes. We look forward to Jamie’s participation in the 2007 WSOP."
He's right. Someone with the tournament should have stepped in immediately. To this day, I'm not sure why that didn't happen. The infractions were obvious, and the rules do not require an opponent to lodge a complaint.
Pollack also said, “I do want to stress, however, that we do not condone any violations of the rules and will make every effort to enforce them in every WSOP event."
We can only hope. The poker world doesn't need another Jamie Gold. One is more than enough.
Photo by FlipChip at the fabulous LasVegasVegas.com... is there a better poker photog out there?