Poker Legends: Doyle Brunson

Born in the early 30’s in Longworth, Texas, he started off as a promising athlete, as a member of the All-State Texas basketball team and state champion in the mile run. After a knee injury put an end to his basketball career, he focused on education and got an MBA.

Bronson started playing poker in college to get extra pocket money, after seeing that he couldn’t make ends meet with his TA job. He teamed up with Johnny Moss and Amarillo Slim Preston and travelled through the county as a rounder looking for action and since poker was not as respectable as it is today, they could only get into illegal games.

He was the first to win a $1 Million poker tournament and got nine WSoP bracelets throughout his gambling career. Yet, his greatest achievement is considered the book “Doyle Brunson’s Super System”, which used to be called The Bible of Poker. Even though nowadays it’s somewhat obsolete due to the changes in the structure of the game, the book is known to have changed the game by giving ordinary players a glimpse of how professional players played and won.

Also worth mentioning is that Bronson is known as “Texas Dolly”, a nickname coming from the misspelling of his name by Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder. Also, the Texas Hold’em hand T2 of any suit carries his name, as he won two World Series of Poker tournaments in a row holding it.