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Doyle Brunson, also known as Texas Dolly, (born August 10, 1933 in Longworth, Fisher County, Texas) is an American poker player who has played professionally for over 50 years. He is a two-time World Series of Poker main event winner and the author of several poker books.

The first player to earn $1 million in poker tournaments, Brunson has won ten World Series of Poker bracelets throughout his career, tied with Johnny Chan for second all-time, one behind Phil Hellmuth's 11. He is also one of only four players to have won the main event at the World Series of Poker consecutively, which he did in 1976 and 1977.

Brunson was born in Longworth, Texas, a town with a population of approximately 100, and was the eldest child with two younger siblings. 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 4:43. Despite receiving offers from many colleges, he attended 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; when the ton of weight shifted, Brunson instinctively tried to stop it, but it landed on his leg, breaking it in two places. He 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". He played more often after being injured and his winnings paid for his expenses. 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, 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 became a professional poker player.

Poker career

Brunson started off by playing on illegal games in Exchange Street, Fort Worth, Texas with a friend named Dwayne Hamilton. Eventually they began traveling around Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, playing in bigger games, and met fellow-professionals Amarillo Slim and Sailor Roberts. The illegal games Brunson played in during this time were usually run by criminals who were often members of organized crime groups, thus rules were not always enforced. Brunson has admitted to having a gun pulled on him several times and noted that he was robbed and beaten as well. However since poker was not a socially accepted career path during this time period, and given the reputation of those running the games he was playing in, he had little legal recourse.

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, and 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.

Other than his poker success, his greatest achievement is probably his book, Super/System, which is widely considered to be one of the most authoritative books on poker. 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 it cost him a lot of money. An updated revision, Super/System 2 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 game in the world. A $4000/$8000 limit mixed poker game in "Bobby's Room' at the Bellagio. He also plays in many of the biggest poker tournaments around the world. He won his ninth gold bracelet in a mixed games event in 2003, and in 2004 he finished 53rd (in a field of 2,576) 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. He is now one bracelet behind Phil Hellmuth, who earned his 11th bracelet at the WSOP on 2007-06-11.

Brunson's nickname, "Texas Dolly", came from the incorrect reading of his name by Jimmy Snyder, and it stuck. Snyder was supposed to announce Brunson as "Texas Doyle" (since he was from the state of Texas) but incorrectly read Brunson's first name as Dolly when announcing it. Many of Brunson's fellow top pros now simply refer to Brunson as "Dolly".

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. In both 1976 and 1977, he was an underdog in the final hand, requiring Brunson to come from behind both times. 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." He changes his wording in SuperSystem2, however, noting that he 'tries to never play this hand'. However, it has been seen on episodes of High Stakes Poker, Poker After Dark, the Professional Poker Tour and the World Poker Tour that he does play the hand. He was also eliminated from the 2007 World Series of Poker main event while holding A-Q.

Brunson endorses the online poker room Doyles Room.