Doyle ‘Texas Dolly’ Brunson is the godfather of poker. He is the Jack Nicklaus, the Pele, the Don Bradman of the world’s best known and best loved card game – the only difference is that he is still playing and still winning.

THE EARLY YEARS

Brunson began his life as a country farm boy in the tiny town of Longworth, Texas. Born in 1933, he grew up in the middle of the Great Depression and quickly realised that the only way he could get out of Longworth to college was to qualify for a sports scholarship.

This Bruson did with ease; he was a supremely gifted natural athlete – the fastest school boy in Texas over a mile distance, and a phenomenal basketball player. The offers rolled in, and Brunson eventually chose Hardin-Simmons University, as it was closest to his home.

Once there Brunson’s star continued to rise and he was even drafted by the Lakers basketball team (back then they were the Minneapolis Lakers). But before he ever reached the ranks of professional basketball player Brunson’s dreams were shattered when he suffered a terrible break to his leg – cracking the bone in two places and leaving him in a cast for two years.

Without that accident it is unlikely the Brunson we know today would ever have materialised. His future career in tatters, Brunson focused on education, gaining a Masters degree in administrative education, and, no longer able to participate in sports, he began to spend more time playing five card stud, a game he already played from time to time at university.

On the first day of Brunson’s first and only ‘regular’ job after university he found himself invited to a game of seven-card-stud where he earned over a month’s salary in under three hours: “From then on, all those small poker games in Texas, that became my territory.”

THE TEXAS ROUNDERS

Brunson’s poker career was thus born, and he spent many years playing in illegal poker games around the state, winning large sums of money and being robbed and threatened at every turn.

The big money games where he played were located on what became known as the Bloodthirsty Highway: frequented by outlaws, thieves and pimps it was a dangerous way to live, but as Bruson himself says: “they were the ones that made the poker games really good.”

In According to Doyle, a book of Brunson’s personal poker experiences, he recalls, among others, sitting next to a man who had his head blown, having a knife held to his throat, being threatened with a baseball bat, and being robbed by a group of men in ski masks with guns.

Brunson survived, with a few scratches and a decent some of money to show for it, and it was during this time that Brunson met up with two others of history’s best known players: Amarillo Slim and Sailor Roberts (1975 WSOP champion). Known as The Texas Rounders the three poker sharks would travel together, pooling their money and watching each others backs while they bled the Texas poke circuit dry.

Eventually, after about six years on the Texas circuit, when games were beginning to get harder to come by, the Texas Rounders headed to Vegas for the first time. It was not a happy experience; they lost their entire collective bankroll – a six figure amount (which back then was probably equivalent to a seven figure sum today) and never played as partners again, although they remained friends.

Nevertheless, Brunson returned to Vegas as games in Texas became harder to come by, and decided to settle there.

WSOP CHAMPION

In 1976 Doyle Brunson won the $10,000 buy-in Texas Hold’em main-event in the World Series of Poker, held at the legendary Binion’s Horseshoe in Vegas. The following year Brunson confirmed his legendary status by winning the tournament for a second time, amazingly, with the exact same hand. The Doyle Brunson, as it became known, is the seemingly unthreatening 10-2; in both the 1976 and 1977 WSOP championships he found the necessary cards to turn the Doyle Brunson into a full house.

Texas Dolly, as he became known after a moment of dyslexia from Jimmy “the Greek” Snyder, stayed in Vegas and continued to win vast sums of money in both cash games and tournaments, racking up an incredible ten WSOP bracelets (bracelets are awarded for winning a WSOP event) – a feat matched only by the legendary Johnny Chan.

But it was not only poker that kept Brunson busy. A prodigious gambler, Brunson famously bet astronomical sums of money on a variety of wagers. A particular favourite of his was the golf course, where, according to Brunson: “The guys out on the pro golf tour don't compete for the amount of money we bet on a single round.” He was also more than partial to a flutter on sporting events, often betting over five figures on a single weekend) and proposition betting: he once bet a friend $1 million that he could lose 100 pounds (7 stone) – he won. But it was for something that didn’t involve a wagered dime that Brunson had his greatest success.

AUTHOR

Super System – Brunson’s guide to poker – is the bible of poker. It is regarded as a classic of poker literature and is perhaps Brunson’s finest achievement. Detailing the ins and outs of a variety of different poker games, Super System actually caused an uproar amongst professional poker players when it was released, furious that Brunson would give away the hard won secrets to poker success. But for others it was the holy grail, the key to a door with untold riches behind it.

The book was so comprehensive and instructive that Brunson even claims it has cost him money – via the number of good poker players it has created. And on top of that , it generated a market for poker books that had never existed before, paving the way for players like Mike Caro and David Slanksy to write their iconic tomes.

STILL GOING STRONG

Even today, aged 72, Brunson continues to more than hold his own on the poker tables, playing regularly on the highest-stakes cash games in the world (such as the $4000 - $8000 Hold’em games in Vegas) where he is known as The Man, and continuing to dominate the tournament circuit (Brunson’s recently finished third in the WPT Five Diamond Championship at the Bellagio, collecting $563,485).

In addition to his poker playing and writing (Super System II was released last year) Brunson has joined the highly lucrative and currently booming world of online poker, with Doyle’s Room a big player in the market.

FAMILY

Brunson married his wife Louise in 1962, two years after he met her. After Louise became pregnant Doyle developed a tumor in his neck, from which doctors claimed he could not recover. This was not how Brunson saw it however, and his recovery was labelled a miracle by doctors – Brunson attributed it to the prayers of his wife’s friends.

Incredibly, shortly afterwards his wife Louise also developed, and recovered from, a tumor. But in 1975 the Brunson’s luck tragically ran out, when their daughter Doyla died aged 18 after taking too much potassium for a heart condition.

The Brunsons have a son, Todd, who is a well known poker player in his own right with a WSOP bracelet to his name already. His win, in the Omaha High-Low event, made the Brunsons the first ever father-son pair to win bracelets at the WSOP.

CAREER TOURNAMENT WINS

Brunson has had an extraordinary career. He has won ten WSOP bracelets, more than anyone except Johnny Chan, the first five of which came back to back. In 1980 he finished second in the WSOP main-event, winning $146,000, although that was scant consolation for failing to equal the world record of three WSOP main-event wins. He then finished fourth in 1982 and third in 1983. Brunson has finished in the money in the WSOP an impressive 24 times, and prior to the late 1990’s (when the prize for fisrt place rose past $1 million), the only people to have won more money at the WSOP than Brunson were TJ Cloutier, Phil Hellmuth and Johnny Chan – three legends of poker. Brunson’s earnings from his final table appearances alone (in WSOP & WPT) top $4 million.

Year	Tournament	Prize (US$)
1976	$10,000 No Limit Hold'em World Championship	$220,000
1977	$5,000 Deuce to Seven Draw	$80,250
1977	$10,000 No Limit Hold'em World Championship	$340,000
1977	$1,000 Seven-Card Stud Split	$62,500
1978	$5,000 Seven-Card Stud	$68,000
1979	$600 Mixed Doubles (with Starla Brodie)	$4,500
1991	$2,500 No Limit Hold'em	$208,000
1998	$1,500 Seven-Card Razz	$93,000
2003	$2,000 H.O.R.S.E.	$84,080
2005	$5,000 No Limit Shorthanded Texas Hold'em	$367,800
Total		$1,528,130

Brunson’s success in the WPT demonstrates just what a terrific competitor he is. More than twice the age of most entrants Brunson currently lies in 15th place on the all-time list, out of more than 1000 players.