Few players have had a bigger impact on the game of poker than the legend that is Doyle Brunson. Born on August 10 1933 in Fisher County Texas Doyle was an athlete from a very young age. He had dreams of playing in the NBA and was being scouted by the Minneapolis Lakers. Unfortunately a severe leg injury destroyed that dream. However, During his time recovering from the injury he played poker more often and ended up paying for his expenses with his winnings. Although Brunson had obtained his Masters degree and held several professional jobs, he soon realized that playing poker could earn him more than a traditional salary.
Brunson met his future wife Louise in 1959 and health issues would continue to follow him. Louise became pregnant, but later that year, a tumor was discovered in Doyle's neck. When it was operated on, the surgeons found that the cancer had spread. They felt that an operation would prolong his life long enough for him to see the birth of the baby, so they went ahead with it. After the operation, no trace of the cancer could be found.[17]
Brunson has attributed his cure to the prayers of friends of his wife and their correspondence with a self-proclaimed Christian faith healer.[18] And it is interesting to not that, Louise developed a tumor shortly afterwards and, when she went for surgery, her tumor was also found to have disappeared.
Unlike players who can start their careers today in the air-conditioned safety of a casino, Brunson started off by playing in illegal games around Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana, playing in bigger games with the likes of Amarillo Slim and Sailor Roberts. The games Brunson played in during this time were usually run by criminals who were often members of organized crime, so rules were not always enforced. Brunson admitted to having a gun pulled on him several times among a few robberies and beatings.
In the 1970s Doyle decided to follow the money to Las Vegas. He was a regular at the WSOP since its very inception. Throughout his career, Doyle claimed as many as 10 WSOP bracelets. While some of these were won during the early years of poker and in events with a small number of entries, Texas Dolly won several events in the 90s and 2000s as well. He won a WPT title for more than a million dollars in 2004. His live tournament winnings exceed six million dollars, but most of Doyle’s time and energy went into cash games.

In 1978 Doyle self-published Super System which many consider to be the “poker bible.” In Super System Doyle revealed some of the strategies and mathematical elements of poker that were known mostly only to the pros at that point. In fact, Doyle gave away so much information he believes it cost him a lot of money. He later released Super System 2 in 2004 which had contributions from many of the other “greats” of the poker game.
during the 2018 World Series of Poker, Doyle announced his retirement, explaining that he wanted to spend more time with his wife and family and focus more on his personal life.
He does still play poker occasionally and if so it is usually in Bobby’s Room, but he has stayed pretty true to his world and dedicates most of his time now to spending with his wife. Although he does maintain a pretty active Twitter feed should you be interested in checking in on him. And if you are ever interested in playing the hand named after the Godfather of poker, it is the ten-deuce which was the hand he won the World Series of Poker with two years in a row.
Doyle is one of the greatest and longest lasting professional poker players or all time.

Doyle Brunson has given poker so much, but perhaps his biggest contribution came back in 1978 when he changed the game forever by writing and publishing the book ‘Super System – How I made over $1,000,000 playing poker”. Doyle Brunson at the 2005 WSOP Lifestyle Show. Doyle Brunson has been called the Godfather of Poker due to his iconic status in the history of the game. Brunson, born in Texas in 1933, is arguably the man most identified with the game of Texas Hold 'em during its long adolesence and, like a proud father, has been pleased to watch its sudden surge of popularity due to the poker boom. 8.7K likes 7 talking about this. Verified Official Page of Legendary Poker Player - Doyle Brunson. Doyle Brunson is the definition of a poker legend. Not only does he boast 10 WSOP bracelets, back-to-back WSOP Championships, and millions of dollars in prize money, but he remains one of the best poker players in the world at over 80 years old with his unpredictable aggressive style. Doyle Brunson @TexDolly. Since 1988, CardPlayer has provided poker players with poker strategy, poker news, and poker results.

Images from 1976 WSOP: By UNLV - This image is part of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas Special Collections on the World Series of Poker, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45430

Special thanks to: https://gaming.unlv.edu/WSOP/

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**In the second of a 10-part series, the Paul Phua Poker School recalls how 10-2 became the luckiest hand in World Series of Poker history**

With the sheer number of hands that have been played during all the successive World Series of Poker (WSOP) tournaments, you would think that anything could happen. But of all the unlikely strokes of fortune over nearly 50 years of the WSOP, there cannot be anything to rival Doyle Brunson taking down the championship two years running – with the very same lucky hand!

Who is Doyle Brunson?

Doyle Brunson, nicknamed “Texas Dolly” or “The Godfather of Poker”, is one of the last of the old poker greats still standing – or at least sitting, since you’ll often see him in a motorised chair these days. He’s 83 years old, and has been plagued for most of that time by the bad knee that ended his youthful dream of becoming a professional basketball player.
Basketball’s loss is poker’s gain. Brunson has won 10 WSOP bracelets, and his poker strategy book Super/System, originally self-published in 1978, became the bible for a whole generation of poker players. In 2006, after Super/System 2 was published, Brunson was voted by Bluff Magazine the most influential force in the world of poker.

1976: Doyle Brunson wins the WSOP Main Event

In the 1976 WSOP Main Event, Doyle Brunson was heads-up with a player called Jesse Alto. Unlike Brunson, Alto was a keen amateur rather than a professional: his day job was as a car dealer. As a result, he had not fully learned to keep cool in tight spots, and Brunson said he was looking to exploit that weakness.
Jesse Alto bet out with A-J, an excellent starting hand when heads-up. Brunson called with 10-2 suited. The flop came A-J-10, giving Alto two pair. Brunson went all-in with the weaker hand, Alto of course called.
The story of the 1976 WSOP could have been about how an amateur car dealer bested the world’s top pros… but the poker gods decided otherwise. In one of the worst bad beats in Main Event history, Brunson caught runner-runner 2s on the turn and river to make a full house!

1977: Doyle Brunson wins the WSOP Main Event again – with the same hand!

They say lightning never strikes twice. Perhaps it does in Texas. The very next year, Doyle Brunson was defending his title heads-up against Gary “Bones” Berland when he looked down at 10-2 – again. Berland was dealt 8-5.
Yet again Brunson found himself behind when the flop of 10-8-5 gave him a pair, and his opponent two pair. Yet again, the 2 hit on the turn to give Brunson two pair, and this time he was ahead. When Berland pushed all-in, Brunson gladly called. Incredibly, Brunson yet again made a full house on the river when a 10 hit, and he was crowned world champion for the second year in a row.

The “Doyle Brunson hand”

There are many colourful names for different poker hands. Aces are nicknamed “bullets” or “pocket rockets”; pocket Kings are nicknamed “cowboys”; J-5 is known as “Jackson Five” or just “Motown”.
To this day, if you show 10-2, another player around the table is likely to nod wisely and say, “Ah, the ‘Doyle Brunson hand’”.

Who is Doyle Brunson? Poker player profile

Doyle Brunson Poker Book

Born in 1933, Doyle Brunson is nicknamed “Texas Dolly” or “the Godfather of Poker”
He is second equal in WSOP bracelets, with 10
He won back-to-back WSOP Main Events in 1976 and 1977
Doyle Brunson is the author of several books on poker including Super/System and Super/System 2

Read the first blog in our World Series of Poker mini series on how the World Series of Poker was born, and how “the Grand Old Man of Poker” earned his name.

Doyle Brunson Today

Or come back tomorrow and read abouthow the tournament phrase “a chip and a chair” was born at the WSOP.