Doyle Brunson Biography

Known by the nickname “Texas Dolly,” Doyle Brunson has been a professional poker player for over 50 years. He is the closest thing to a poker icon that there is today.

Despite his age, Brunson still casts a large shadow on the game. He is a true giant of poker. In fact, poker historians credit Brunson for giving poker its respectability.

Brunson became an ambassador for poker not so much because of his skill at the poker table, although he certainly had that – in spades, as they used to say. It was more because he exuded the kind of charisma that professional poker needed during its fledgling years. Brunson had the personality and disposition of a true gentleman. He was a man who could be trusted. By his example, Brunson showed many generations of aspiring poker players how to do things right.

Brunson was the first recognized back-to-back world champion of poker. He won the World Series of Poker main event, known as the game’s world championship, in consecutive years, 1976 and 1977. To this day, only four men have won the WSOP main event two straight times.

Brunson’s WSOP championships produced a nice bit of trivia as well. During both years, he won with the same hand – a full house of tens full of deuces – an incredible feat. Today, a Hold ‘em “10-2” hand is popularly known as “a Doyle Brunson.”

Brunson holds the record for most WSOP championship bracelets won, with 10. (The “Oriental Express,” Johnny Chan, has tied that record.) In addition, Brunson was the first poker player to earn over $1 million in poker tournaments.

Brunson was born in Longworth, Texas in 1933. His early interest was not cards but, rather, basketball. He became so good at it that he was eventually drafted by the Minneapolis (now, Los Angeles) Lakers in the National Basketball Association or NBA. Unfortunately, a knee injury ended his career before it even got started. Bereft of basketball, Brunson learned to channel his competitive instincts to another worthy battlefield – poker.

At that time, there was no WSOP or World PokerTour or even organized poker, for that matter. The game was usually played behind closed doors, away from the public eye. Given that, Brunson honed his skills playing students for their allowance in small games in various Texas colleges. He then moved up to the bigger games up at Fort Worth’s north side, which he now refers to as “the toughest place in the world to play poker. Thieves, robbers, and killings were commonplace up there,”

“That's where I really got my training, “ Brunson added. “The big money was in the games up on what we called the 'Bloodthirsty Highway' where everybody there was some kind of an outlaw. They were thieves, pimps -- a real bad element. But they were also the ones that made the poker games really good. Needless to say, I took a few scratches along the way,”

Pretty soon, Brunson became a rounder, which is a person who makes the rounds in search of one poker game after another, trying to make a living. On his travels, he was joined by a number of men who would also become poker legends in their own right, such as Johnny Moss, Sailor Roberts, and "Amarillo Slim" Preston. Between them and with Brunson included, these men would produce eight world championships.

Brunson is the co-author of what has been regarded as the “Bible” of poker -- "Super/System: How I Made Over $1,000,000 Playing Poker" – written 25 years ago.

Following the recent death of his wife and one daughter, Brunson converted to Christianity and often reads Christian literature. He also has a son and daughter who compete in the professional poker circuit. His son, Todd, has already won a WSOP championship bracelet after topping the Omaha High Low tournament in 2005.