Doyle Brunson Poker Biography
Here’s a bit of poker trivia: Which famous professional poker player was almost drafted by a team to play professional basketball in the National Basketball Association (NBA)?
The answer is Doyle Brunson. The Minneapolis Lakers had such a keen interest in drafting Texas Dolly that they sent a representative to his college to talk to the coach. The Lakers had every intention of drafting Brunson until a leg injury ended his professional basketball career prematurely.
Brunson is a veritable poker icon. He’s the first player to make $1 million on the professional poker circuit and only the second player to win professional poker’s most prestigious event, the World Series of Poker (WSOP) main event, two consecutive times. More importantly, he is recognized as a true gentleman of the game, whose presence and reputation helped poker get out of the shadows and into mainstream American life. By his example, Brunson helped poker gain respectability. In 1988, he was elevated to the Poker Hall of Fame.
Budding Professional Athlete
Doyle Brunson was born in 1933 on a farm in Longworth, Texas. Even as a young child, Brunson showed a competitive streak. His focus was not on cards, but on more physical, athletic pursuits, including track and field and basketball. He was the Texas state champion in running the mile. But it was basketball that made him famous, especially after an executive of the Minneapolis Lakers visited his high school to talk to the coach. The Lakers said they planned to draft Brunson, whose dream of making a living as a professional athlete was well on its way.
But then, tragedy struck. Brunson broke his leg and would never make it to the Lakers. It was a huge blow to Brunson since he had focused on athletics his entire life and had no other ambition than to play in the NBA. Fate had dealt him a cruel hand as Brunson spent two years in the hospital recovering from his injury. It’s a tribute to his character that he was able to bounce back quickly.
Instead, he assessed his situation and decided to pour everything he had into getting a college degree. He finished school with a master’s degree in administrative education and planned to teach and coach after college. But after graduation, Brunson discovered that a teacher’s salary was so low that he decided to do something else: sell business machines door to door. He hated it.
Early Days at Poker
Fortunately, while Brunson wasn’t very good at selling door to door, it did lead him to poker. Visiting an office building one day, Brunson discovered that everyone was at the back playing poker. From playing in college, Brunson had earned enough from poker to help him pay for his medical expenses, so he joined some games. One day, while playing seven-card stud, Brunson won over one month’s salary in just under three hours. He decided to quit his job and focus on poker full time.
During his early days, Brunson became a regular on the Fort Worth poker circuit at a time when gambling was considered illegal. “You’d start getting arrested,” wrote Brunson in a recent autobiography, “but you would meet a lot of characters. I’m talking about bad people: the thieves, the pimps, and so forth. But most of them were pretty personable. I was single, running around chasing the girls, and they were too. So consequently I got to know a lot of those guys.”
He tells about stories of people getting shot over things like drugs and women. In one poker game, Brunson said someone came up to one of the players and shot him in the head. As a regular at the north side of Fort Worth, Brunson was part of a group of 30 or so players, but when he turned 40, there were only two of them left: Brunson and Brian “Sailor” Edwards. Everyone else, according to Brunson, was either dead or in jail.
Brunson and Edwards decided to become rounders, professional poker players who moved from town to town playing poker at every opportunity. They roamed Texas like hungry mercenaries, regularly running into the likes of Johnny Moss and “Amarillo Slim” Preston. Along the way, Brunson married his childhood sweetheart, Louise, and they had four children. With a family now in tow, Brunson became an even fiercer poker player and outstanding earner.
It came to a point where Brunson started running out of games because he won so often that no one wanted to play against him. He decided to find a new playground. After seven years of touring Texas, the Brunson-Edwards tandem broke up. Brunson packed his wife and children and relocated to Las Vegas.
Viva Las Vegas
Once in Las Vegas, Brunson continued his winning ways. Texas Dolly quickly established himself as one of the best poker players around.
In 1976, he won the main event the World Series of Poker, known as the world championship, then repeated the feat in 1977, becoming poker’s second back-to-back world champion. (The first is Johnny Moss.) Overall, Brunson has won 10 WSOP bracelets signifying 10 tournament victories, the second most all time in a tie with Johnny Chan.
In 1978, Brunson released his famous poker book “Super/System,” now regarded as a poker classic and one of the most authoritative poker books ever written. Some call it the bible of poker.
Today, Brunson continues to participate in the biggest poker tournaments around. He won his 10th WSOP bracelet in 2005 and is hot on the heels of Phil Hellmuth Jr., who won his record 11th WSOP bracelet in June 2007. Brunson is also a regular at the high-stakes poker game at the Bellagio, played in “Bobby’s Room,” where the limit of the games is $4000/$8000.
There are two hands in poker known as a “Doyle Brunson.” The first is a two and 10 of any suit because that was his winning hand in the WSOP main event in both 1976 and 1977. He was a huge underdog on both occasions but, amazingly, managed a full house in both years to win consecutive world championships.
The other hand named in his honor is the ace and queen of any suit because, in his Super/System book, he says he “tries to never play this hand.” Unfortunately, Brunson was holding that precise hand when he was eliminated from the 2007 WSOP main event.
To date, Brunson has won $5.3 million playing in professional poker tournaments.
