ANON never said anything about a HL2 pre-gold. This is a myth.

In the .nfo file for Half-Life and CS for HL2 (running off of the HL2 engine), he even confirms that there is no such thing as a pre-gold version of HL2, and that what he released is what Valve had.

Agreed, but since half life 2 never went gold, anything youve seen/played/heard about is "pre gold" by nature.