Doyle 'Texas Dolly' Brunson
There are a lot of poker celebrities today, and one of the most-respected among them is Doyle F. Brunson. Born on August 10, 1933 in Longworth, Fisher County, Texas, this professional poker player has been playing professionally for more than fifty years. Brunson's nickname is "Texas Dolly." This nickname came from a mistake made by fellow announcer, Jimmy Snyder; during a tournament, he was supposed to announce Brunson as "Texas Doyle," but mistakenly pronounced "Doyle" as "Dolly." Today, many of Brunson's colleagues still refer to him as Dolly.
He is one of the first people to have brought Texas Hold'em to the Las Vegas gambling scene, and today, this particular poker variant is one of the most famous and widely-played poker games in the world. He was present at the start of the World Series of Poker, when it was still a small gathering of six to eight people, held in Binion's Horseshoe casino. He is also the very first poker player to win the World Series of Poker's Main Event twice in a row. He has won a total of ten World Series of Poker bracelets; tying with Johnny Chan in second place for the most WSOP bracelets won. Currently, Phil Hellmuth holds the most World Series of Poker Bracelets, with eleven.
Aside from his achievements at the poker table, Brunson is also an accomplished author. He has written one of the first and most influential books on poker and poker strategy in the world, "Super/System." It is the first book to offer ordinary players an insight into how professional players played. It has become so successful that Brunson himself has mentioned that the book has actually cost him a lot of money. The book is believed by many to be the single most authoritative book in the subject to date. The book was originally self-published in 1978, and since then, it has been revised only once. The updated and revised edition, "Super/System 2," was published in 2004, and has the subtitle, "How I made one million dollars playing poker." Aside from "Super/System," which is believed to be Doyle Brunson's greatest achievement outside of the poker game itself, he has also written another book, "Poker Wisdom of a Champion." The book's original title was "According to Doyle" by Lyle Stuart, and was published in 1984.
Brunson continues to play poker to this day, and has participated in poker tournaments all over the world; including a four thousand dollar/eight thousand dollar mixed poker game in "Bobby's Room" at the Bellagio.