At the 2006 WSOP, Gold maintained a significant chip lead from Day 4 onwards to win the World Series of Poker Main Event (No Limit Texas hold 'em, $10,000 buy-in), outlasting 8,772 other players. Excluding 4th-place finisher Allen Cunningham, Gold had more casino tournament final table finishes than the rest of his final table opponents combined. Gold eliminated 7 of his 8 opponents at the final table. Gold defeated Paul Wasicka heads-up, earning a record $12,000,000 when in the final hand his made a pair with the board of . Wasicka held and did not improve with the on the turn and on the river. Gold won the event despite earlier saying that he would prefer to finish second as he felt uncomfortable with the idea of being famous. Gold ate blueberries during the play of the 2006 WSOP main event final table and joked in a post-tournament interview that the blueberries were "brain food" and the reason he won. Gold's WSOP win was marked by an uncanny ability to goad his opponents into either calling his bets when he had an unbeatable hand or folding to him when he was weak. He consistently told his opponents that he was weak or strong, telling the truth sometimes, and sometimes lying, with the net result of successfully deceiving his opponents most of the time. Prior to the 2006 WSOP Main Event win, Gold had compiled a solid record in tournament competition, using lessons learned from poker legend and previous two-time WSOP main event winner and owner of 10 WSOP bracelets, Johnny Chan.