One could say that The World Series Of Poker (WSOP) has been pretty good to Doyle Brunson, and of course he’d say vice versa. At least I’d hope so.
Ten bracelets, thirty plus cashes with more to come and those back to back Main Event titles in 1976 and 1977 have more than secured Brunsons rightful place in the eternal poker history books.
He’s still going strong even though the twitter-verse recently brewed up a proper storm in a tea cup over a recently out of context tweet he made about his possible non-participation in this years WSOP. He replied with a great explanation here.
Texas Dustbowl
Brunson born in rural Texas in the 1930’s a place which is often described by writers like McCarthy as being hot, and dusty turned out to be quite the athlete in his younger years, excelling in both in basketball and track.
However his dreams of becoming a professional were unfortunately cut short when he suffered a severe leg injury that left him in a cast for a couple of years.
Ain’t Gonna Work No More…
And so taking a job as a salesman he found poker. It was actually on hist very first day that he was invited to play in a seven-card stud game and legend has it that he earned over a month’s wages that very same day.
He had played some poker before his injury, but this was the first time he realized the financial opportunities of pursuing this full time. And right there and then he quit his job to become a professional poker player.
‘The Texas Rounders’
Playing the odd game here and there in Texas he eventually hooked up with life long friends Amarillo Slim and Sailor Roberts and so for the next six years ‘The Texas Rounders’ would travel together playing poker and basically gambling on anything that they could find to gamble on.
However as Brunson remarked in his book their first trip to Las Vegas was a complete disaster when they lost their entire six figure bankroll at the poker tables in a very short period of time.
Back To Back
However Brunson obviously liked the place to much the moved to Las Vegas. He’s played the WSOP regularly since it’s birth in 1970 and in 1976 he hit gold taking down the WSOP Main Event and winning $230,000.
If that wasn’t enough he did it again the very next year in 1977 and scooping a payday of $340,000. Both years Brunson won with full houses, holding a ten and a two – The hand has even been named after him now and has forever made Doyle ‘Texas Dolly’ Brunson the most recognizable name in the game.
Doyle has always proclaimed his love for the cash games, but I for one sure hope to see him at the WSOP Main Event this year, it just wouldn’t be the same. You can of course follow his wonderful tweets @TexDolly
The WSOP 2013 Main Event
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