Jamie Gold...Worst Possible Winner?

[betgo]

Unfortunately the WSOP champion isn't selected for publicity reasons like Miss America and American Idol. It is really not his job to around representing poker like Miss America. Moneymaker, Raymer, and Hachem have done a good job of representing poker, but it is not there responsibility to do so.

Whoever plays the best and gets the luckiest wins, even slightly obnoxious rich Jewish Hollywood agents.

There are plenty of people with bad reputations and/or criminal records who could have won, including won of the earliest champions, Amarillo Slim, wo incidently represented poker quite effectively.

[HSB]

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I just have a personal issue with calling someone who is 36..."middle-aged". Ouch.

Edmond

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I don't have a personal issue with it and I'm 37. I'm more amused by the stupidity than anything else.

[Jurollo]

They did leave out that he had played live cash games a LOT in the past. It is all about how ESPN pushes someone.
~Justin

[betgo]

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Bodog better start running some commercials with Gold sitting in a chair talking about how he's the same guy, nicer yacht...or wutever.

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That's a good line, "same guy, nicer yacht".

A lot of the entries are wealthy amateurs. It is not suprising one of them won it.

[RockMySocks]

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Moneymaker, Raymer, Hachem, Gold......4 middle aged white men.

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lol... NONE of these winners were "middle-aged"...

[J.A.K.]

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a smart, succesful guy who played well is a good winner imho.

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The jury is still out here I think. The deck hit him for 3 days to get that huge stack. The hand against Lee (QQ>JJ) was not well played. He chopped 3 all-in pots that I saw (AK=AK, KK=KK, KT=KT) etc. None of this is his fault or makes him a bad person. But when you know going in he is ambivalent about first place it does not ingratiate him into the poker community. If someone does not want to be an ambassador for poker then I do not think it is a stretch to say he will not be a good poker representative. Some of OP's list was arbitrary, but no doubt that a woman champion would be great for poker as would a pro. Young guns are already well represented at FTs everywhere and will continue to win big events.

[dogdrool]

If AC won, would we have had our first homosexual champ?

[El Diablo]

ZBT,

In all seriousness, from a marketing perspective, I think Jeff Madsen is the real story of this WSOP.

[ZBTHorton]

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ZBT,

In all seriousness, from a marketing perspective, I think Jeff Madsen is the real story of this WSOP.

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Agreed.

[Dunkman]

I don't like him, and I wasn't rooting for him. However, he outplayed the rest of the table, who played like weak nits, so in that respect I have no problem with him winning. I agree someone else would be a lot better for poker, but I think he probably "deserved" to win.