Doyle Brunson was the 1st to win $ 1 million in poker – 7/3/2023 – Sports

Football had Pelé, then Maradona, Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Basketball had Wilt Chamberlain, then Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan and LeBron James. Poker had Doyle Brunson, then him again, and then again, and then again.

Honored last Sunday (2) in Las Vegas, during the World Series of Poker (WSOP, a kind of world championship), Brunson died on May 14 as a poker legend, unmistakable with a cowboy hat on his head and a smile on his face. face.

He was 89 years old and, just a few months earlier, he was still successfully tackling the most expensive tables in the United States. Along the way, he accompanied and provoked transformations in the game and, more than anyone, knew how to adapt to the times, earning him a place in the hall of fame and the nickname “godfather of poker”.

When he started, in Texas in the 1950s, he frequented clandestine tables where the mafia dealt the cards. He carried a revolver in his belt and, he said in his memoirs, saw a man shot in the head during a match.

At that time, he suffered threats, lost all his money a few times – not always to honest opponents – and was arrested on many others, but he already liked poker too much to abandon it.

Competitive since he was a child, Texan Brunson saw cards as a substitute for the adrenaline he could no longer feel in sports. In high school, he was a state champion in the 1,500-meter dash; in college, at 1.91 m, he became a basketball star and caught the attention of the Minneapolis Lakers.

That door closed, however, at the peak of summer. On his way to his senior year at Hardin-Simmons University, he was working in a plaster factory when a pile of plaster landed on his leg, causing a compound fracture and dashing his NBA dreams.

He graduated with no plans for the future, got a master’s degree in business and education and took a job as a salesman to support himself. One day, at a poker table, he won more than his month’s wages in three hours.

It didn’t take long to try life as a professional player. In retrospective analyses, he claimed that he had an advantage as the only person with a higher education in that environment.

He studied odds and strategies, moved to Las Vegas and helped launch the WSOP at the Horseshoe, a casino then run by Benny Bennion – the head of Dallas organized crime, convicted of one murder and accused of two others.

In 1977, Brunson won the seventh edition of the tournament and pocketed US$ 220,000. In 1977, he repeated the feat, taking home $340,000. Both times, the winning hand was a 10 and a 2, one of the worst in texas hold’em, a modality that was gaining more and more fans.

The dispute, in fact, did not deserve the title of world championship, since only 20 or 30 people participated – almost nothing compared to the more than 8,500 who play the main event today, with a registration of US$ 10,000 (R $47,870). Still, adjusted for inflation, those two Brunson awards would add up to nearly $3 million.

With the notoriety of the second championship, he published “How I Made Over $ 1,000,000 Playing Poker” (how I won more than $ 1 million playing poker) in 1979, a book that became a success and helped to popularize the game.

For the first time, amateurs could know the secrets of a professional – even more one considered the first to accumulate seven figures in tournaments. The teachings have withstood the test of time; new editions, with the title “Super System”, continued to be a reference in a game that, like any other, evolved over the years.

When math assessments and game theory took over more and more space, Brunson knew how to adapt; when poker left the clandestine rooms and won the TV, ditto. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, he was a fixture in high stakes television matches.

Brunson had bad days at poker – in a negative sequence, he lost US$ 6 million –, but his balance is very positive. Although the exact figure is unknown, estimates are in excess of $50 million.

In tournaments, he accumulated just over US$ 6 million, including ten WSOP titles (various forms of poker are played in each edition). He is the second biggest winner in history, despite never having prioritized the championships.

Known as the “Texas Dolly”, it has always favored cash games, with minimum bets over $500. In these rooms, although they are no longer clandestine, there is no accounting of results.

His crowning achievement, however, is incalculable to the poker world. In Sunday’s tribute, it was decided that, at least among game lovers, October 10 (10/2 in American notation) will be Doyle Brunson Day, a way to remember his lucky hand.