Richard Luscombe in Miami. The Guardian.co.uk
Saturday August 12, 2006

A Hollywood talent agent used to securing big deals for television stars earned his own multimillion-dollar payday after pulling off the acting job of a lifetime on a Las Vegas card table.

Jamie Gold's bluff in the final hand of the world's richest poker tournament won him the top prize of $12m (£6.3m) and a place among Sin City's legends.

"I knew it was my chance," said Mr Gold, 36, after seeing off Paul "Kwickfish" Wasicka with a pair of queens to a pair of tens to win the 37th World Series of Poker.

"I just went into my act. I actually talked him into calling with the worst of it and that won the whole tournament."

As the last survivor of 8,773 hopefuls who began play on July 28, Mr Gold whooped for joy as security guards tipped out his prize of 14 briefcases containing half a tonne of $100 bills on the card table at the Rio Hotel and Casino, close to the famous Las Vegas strip.

Now all he needs is a nickname as he joins previous tournament winners including The Fossilman, Mike the Mouth and Miami John.

Mr Gold, who once represented actors Felicity Huffman of Desperate Housewives and James Gandolfini of The Sopranos, dominated the final stages of the tournament, eliminating six of the final seven players in four days and amassing almost $79m in chips.

"I thought he was bluffing," said Mr Wasicka, 25, a former restaurant manager from Westminster, Colorado. "You kind of just have to go with your gut. That's what I did, and it was wrong."

The World Series is poker's blue riband tournament and has grown steadily in prize money and popularity since its inception 11 years ago, when "Action" Dan Harrington emerged from a field of 270 to see off Canadian Howard Goldfarb and win the $1m pot.

This year's final stages were shown live on national TV.