The most iconic poker player ever to be dealt cards has passed away at the age of 89. To many, Doyle Brunson wasn’t simply the reason they got into poker. The man known as ‘Texas Dolly’ was the inspiration behind amateurs starting to play, he was the motivation for professionals to achieve their dreams. To many, Doyle Brunson was poker.
Doyle Brunson’s death at the age of 89 leaves the poker landscape forever altered.
The Creation of a Legend
Doyle Brunson’s career in cards was so long and legendary that you could be forgiven for thinking that playing poker was all Brunson ever did. In fact, his life – and poker itself – might have looked very different had he not suffered an injury as a high school basketball player. Tipped for NBA greatness, a problem with his knee ended all hopes of a professional sports career for the Texan and he took to playing poker.
Travelling the United States as one of the first professionals in the game, Brunson was part of the six-man coral who decided the 1970 world champion by way of a private vote. That turned out to be Johnny Moss, but Brunson would be an ever-present in the biggest events of poker’s formative years and he finally became the WSOP Main Event winner himself in 1976. Winning with ten-deuce, Doyle repeated the trick 12 months later, winning back-to-back Main Events with the exact same hand.
As ten-deuce became known as the ‘Texas Dolly’, Brunson’s new nickname, the man himself saw his legend grow and grow. Winning 10 WSOP bracelets, Brunson remains in second place on the all-time list of WSOP bracelet winners – behind Phil Hellmuth with 16 – despite having played in far fewer events. Arguably, his return of 10 WSOP bracelets in the number of events he played is the best of them all.
Texas Dolly Inspires Multiple Generations
Brunson’s poker legacy is far more encompassing than simply being one of the greatest ever to play the game. Brunson was one of the first to want to pass on his secrets and did so during a time when no-one was letting their strategies out of the bag. Doyle Brunson’s Super System and Super System 2 remain two of the most seminal works poker authors have ever created and paved the way for the literary arm of the poker industry that players and fans rely on today.
Doyle Brunson’s fame reached far and wide. His cowboy hat and distinctive silhouette made him the Sherlock Holmes of poker; think of what a poker player looks like and his is the shape the mind automatically conjures. A tournament legend, Doyle’ love of cash games is equally remembered. Playing poker in Las Vegas at Bobby’s Room was only real if you’d taken on Doyle. Texas Dolly was the man in Vegas. He always will be.
In later years, Brunson’s signing as an ambassador for the World Poker Tour was something of a renaissance for his own popularity and in marketing terms he showed just how attractive he was to any brand. Having Doyle Brunson in their advertisements elevated the WPT still further and players and fans alike loved his work.
That love of Doyle flowed through every true poker player and certainly every fan of the game. Passionate about poker to a fault, his movement may have slowed in his latter years, but it didn’t diminish his despite to play the game he loved, and he was a fierce competitor, in live broadcasts of the World Series of Poker, as part of the cast of high Stakes Poker and many other broadcasts.
Everywhere he went, often in his motorised cart in this Millennium, fans flocked to his side. If you were at the WSOP and Doyle Brunson entered the cardroom, you knew it long before you saw him.
The Poker World Mourns the Ultimate Poker Hero
Doyle Brunson’s popularity among his fellow poker players is such that no other poker player has come close to the outpouring of love expressed at Doyle’s passing. Doyle had a wicked sense of humor and was comfortable cracking jokes at the felt, even eliciting a laugh from the famously uncrackable Phil Ivey.
Doyle Brunson is the only man that could imitate Phil Ivey and make him laugh pic.twitter.com/ic0JRcuUgZ
— Jeff Boski (@ICuRaRook) May 15, 2023
Daniel Negreanu, a good friend of Doyle, posted this tribute to his hero.
Legend
There will never be another Doyle Brunson
Doyle was @RadioAmanda favorite player by a mile
He will be missed by many, the Godfather of Poker#RIPDoyle pic.twitter.com/Y88BsrDhhP
— Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker) May 15, 2023
The 1989 Main Event winner Phil Hellmuth spoke of his affection of the ‘most beloved poker player in history’.
Poker lost its biggest Legend today: @TexDolly. He inspired 3 generations of poker players w his play, his award winning book “Super System,” and his fabulous style and grit. Doyle always played hard: the man absolutely hated losing!! Doyle ruled the high stakes cash games in Las… pic.twitter.com/L4CKzvzbIF
— phil_hellmuth (@phil_hellmuth) May 15, 2023
Another former world champion, Scotty Nguyen, spoke of his disbelief that the day had come.
can’t believe this day has come – you will always be held high in our hearts, the man, the myth, the legend & THE GODFATHER of poker baby! Mr Brunson, you made poker what it is baby! thank you for what you give to all of us baby! RIP Mr Doyle Brunson THE GODFATHER OF POKER pic.twitter.com/TiwzjQfhCi
— Scotty Nguyen (@TheScottyNguyen) May 15, 2023
A devout Christian, Doyle’s faith was something he attributed to his recovery from cancer in the early 1960s. Survived by his wife, Louise, to whom he was devoted to for well over 60 years, he is also survived by children Todd and Angela. Their other daughter, Doyla, died aged just 18 of a heart defect.
If Doyle was of a different age, he brought that age into the here and now and that applied to his life outside poker as well as his tie at the felt. Uncompromising but kind, fierce but loyal, Doyle Brunson’s legend status in the game was established long before he was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 1988.
Doyle Brunson will be remembered by many as the man who inspired them to take up the game. Poker mourns a legend whose influence has lasted through every era in the books and will continue to do so.
It is not only that the brightest guiding light in the world of poker has been extinguished, but also that the glow Doyle Brunson cast over poker can never be replicated by anyone who follows him. Because we all, players, fans, friends and family, followed him.
The Godfather of Poker showed us the way.
