Poker Legend Doyle Brunson Shaped Today’s Poker World
More than 50 years ago, Doyle Brunson traveled the state of Texas looking for poker games. He played for pennies at Texas Tech, University of Texas, and Texas A&M. Brunson moved on to higher-stakes in the Fort Worth area, where he sat at tables with thieves, pimps, and a plethora of other shady characters. He was robbed so many times that he can’t even give an estimate.
Doyle Brunson watched poker change. The tables, the pots, the players, and even the stigma surrounding high-stakes gambling has changed dramatically since his days in Texas.
On Aug. 10, 1933, Doyle Brunson was born in Longworth, a small West Texas with only about 100 people. He’s a self-proclaimed farm boy who grew up with little monetarily. He attended high school in Sweetwater, Texas and pursued went on to Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, another small town just 40 miles away from his family’s farm. During college, Brunson was recruited by the Minneapolis Lakers. A knee injury, however, crushed his NBA dreams.
While Brunson turned his attention to education, he started making poker rounds to other universities, eventually becoming a rounder, a dangerous profession that involved hopping from one poker game to the next at underground tables. During his rounder days, Brunson met up with three other men that would eventually become poker legends Johnny Moss, Sailor Roberts, and Amarillo Slim Preston.
Brunson earned a master’s degree in education. After comparing a teacher’s salary to his poker winnings, though, Brunson knew he wasn’t cut out for the education field.
In the 1960s, after earning a sizeable bankroll and marrying Louise, Brunson moved the family, which included four children, to Las Vegas.
In Las Vegas Brunson won the 1976 and 1977 World Series of Poker, winning both on the same hand – tens full of deuces. Players now call a “10-2” hand “a Doyle Brunson.” Brunson also has ten gold World Series of Poker bracelets to show off, earning his latest in 2005.
To date, Brunson has made about $1.5 million in tournament prizes – that doesn’t include the high-stakes games he plays outside the tournaments. Each day, Doyle Brunson plays games where pots reach five and six figures. Brunson is also a fan of the sports books, betting thousands of dollars on a single game.
Many bill Doyle Brunson as a grandfather of modern-day poker. “Texas Dolly,” as he’s called at the table, took the underground poker world and made it an acceptable profession. His numerous books have altered the public’s perception of professional gambling, including Super/System, According to Doyle, and Poker Wisdom of a Champion.
The 74-year-old Brunson shows no signs of slowing down. In 2005, Brunson published two books Doyle Brunson’s Super System II and Online Poker. On February 15, 2006 Doyle Brunson was awarded Cardplayer Magazine’s first ever Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2008, Brunson will release My 50 Best Hands, which chronicles his poker playing over the past 50 years.
