Doyle "Texas Dolly" Brunson born August 10, 1933 in Longworth, Texas is an American poker player who has played professionally for over 40 years. He is a former world champion of poker and the author of several poker books.

Early life

Brunson was born in Longworth, Texas, a town with a population of approximately 100, and was one of three children in his family. Because of Longworth's small size, Brunson frequently ran long distances to other towns, and became a promising athlete. He was part of the All-State Texas basketball team, and practiced the one-mile run to keep in shape in the off-season. Although he was more interested in basketball than running, he entered the 1950 Texas Interscholastic Track Meet and won the one-mile event with a time of 4:38. Despite receiving offers from many colleges, he decided to attend Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas because it was close to his home. The Minneapolis Lakers were interested in Brunson, but a knee injury ended his playing days. He had taken a summer job and was unloading some sheetrock at work. When the ton of weight shifted, Brunson attempted to stop the shift with his leg out of instinct, but it landed on his leg, breaking it in two places. His leg was in a cast for two years, and the injury ended his hopes of becoming a professional basketball player. He still occasionally requires a crutch to get around because of the injury. Brunson changed his focus from athletics to education and obtained a master's degree in administrative education.

Brunson had begun playing poker before his injury, playing five card draw and finding it "easy", and he began to play more often after being injured. His poker winnings paid for his expenses, and he obtained a bachelor's degree in 1954 and a master's the following year. After graduating, he took a job as a business machines salesman, but on his first day in the job he was invited to play in a seven-card stud game and earned over a month's salary in under three hours. He soon left the company and began a career as a professional poker player.

Poker career

Brunson started off by playing in illegal games in Exchange Street, Fort Worth, Texas with a friend named Dwayne Hamilton. Eventually they began travelling around Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, playing in bigger games, and met fellow-professionals Amarillo Slim and Sailor Roberts. Hamilton moved back to Fort Worth, while the others teamed up and travelled around together, gambling on poker, golf and, in Doyle's words, "just about everything".^[1] They pooled their money together for gambling, but after six years they made their first serious trip to Las Vegas and lost all of it, a six-figure amount. They decided to stop playing as partners but remain friends.

Brunson finally settled in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Other than his poker success, his greatest achievement is probably the book that is considered to be the bible of poker: Super/System. Originally self-published in 1978, Super/System was the book that transformed poker by giving ordinary players an insight into the way that the professionals like Brunson played and won, so much so that Brunson believes that having written the book cost him a lot of money. An up-to-date sequel to Super/System was published in 2004. Besides Brunson, several top poker players contributed chapters to Super/System including Bobby Baldwin, Mike Caro, David Sklansky, Chip Reese and Joey Hawthorne. The book is subtitled "How I made one million dollars playing poker", by Doyle Brunson. Brunson is also the author of Poker Wisdom of a Champion, originally published as According to Doyle by Lyle Stuart in 1984.

Brunson continues to play in the biggest poker games in the world, playing $4000/$8000 minimum bets and also at the World Series of Poker. He won his ninth gold bracelet in a mixed games event in 2003, and in 2004 he finished 53rd (in a field of 2576) in the No Limit Texas hold 'em Championship event. He won the Legends of Poker World Poker Tour event in 2004 (garnering him a $1.1 Million prize), and finished fourth in the WPT's first championship event. Early in the morning on July 1, 2005, less than a week after Chan had won his 10th gold bracelet - setting a new record - Brunson tied the record by earning his 10th at the 2005 WSOP.

Brunson's nickname, "Texas Dolly", came from the incorrect reading of his name by Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder, and it stuck. Brunson has the honor of having two Texas hold'em hands named after him. One hand, a Ten and a Two of any suit, bears his name as he won the No Limit Hold 'Em event at the World Series of Poker two years in a row with them (1976 and 1977), in both cases completing a full house. Doyle has expressed his displeasure at being known for the hand because it is generally considered a weak starting hand in Texas Hold 'em; in fact, in both 1976 and 1977, his was not the best starting hand at the table, requiring Brunson to come from behind in both cases. Another hand known as a "Doyle Brunson," especially in Texas, is the Ace and Queen of any suit because, as he says on page 519 of the Super/System, he "never plays this hand."

Brunson endorses the online poker room Doyle's Room. He is currently appearing in the GSN series High Stakes Poker.

As of 2006, his total live tournament winnings exceeded $4,300,000

Family life

Brunson met his future wife Louise in 1960, and they married in August 1962. Louise became pregnant and later that year, he discovered a tumor in his neck. When it was operated on, the surgeons found that the cancer had spread and declared it incurable. They felt that an operation would prolong his life enough for him to see the birth of their baby, so they went ahead with it, but after the operation, no trace of the cancer could be found. The doctors said that his recovery must have been a miracle, and Brunson has attributed his recovery to the prayers of friends of his wife. Louise developed a tumor shortly afterwards, but when she went for surgery, her tumor was also found to have disappeared. In 1975, their daughter Doyla was diagnosed with scoliosis, but her spine straightened completely within three months.

Doyla died at 18 when she took too much potassium for a heart-valve condition. Over the following year, Brunson read Christian literature and converted to Christianity.

His son Todd also plays poker professionally. Todd has won a bracelet in Omaha High Low at the 2005 WSOP, making the Brunsons the first father-son combination to win bracelets at the World Series

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