Have you heard the name, Doyle Brunson? If you’re a poker player, you likely have because Brunson played professionally for over fifty years. Known as “The Godfather of Poker,” Brunson died earlier this month. He was 89 years of age.
Brunson was born in Longworth, Texas, on August 10th, 1933, one of three children. At an early age, Brunson excelled in athletics. He attended Sweetwater High School and won the one-mile event in 1050 at the Texas Interscholastic Track Meet. Doyle Brunson received athletic scholarships, and he went on to play basketball at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas. He was good, too, so good that the Minneapolis Lakers of the NBA showed interest in Brunson, but a knee injury ended his hopes of playing in the NBA.
During injury rehab, Brunson began playing poker, the five-card draw. One day he was invited to play in a seven-card stud game, and he won over a month’s salary.
It got to the point that it made more sense for him to turn pro playing poker than working full-time, so he quit his job with the Burroughs Corporation, moved to Las Vegas, and became a professional poker player.
He would travel around Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana, playing bigger games and winning money. The illegal games he played were run by organized crime, and a lot of violence surrounded the game.
The now-famous World Series of Poker had its first run, Brunson played in the Main Event and won back-to-back in 1976 and 1977. Overall, Brunson was the first player to win $1 million in poker tournaments, winning ten World Series of Poker bracelets throughout his career.
Brunson wrote a book on poker called Super System: A Course in Power Poker, widely considered the game’s most authoritative book. RIP, Doyle Brunson. The Godfather of Poker.
