For years, “Doyle Brunson Dies” has been the default placeholder headline in poker media discussions about how you would handle a super-big story that every news outlet is gonna have, and every player is gonna care about.
By now y’all have presumably heard, Doyle Brunson, the Godfather of Poker, Texas Dolly, Ten-Deuce, died Sunday in a Las Vegas hospital at age 89. We all knew it was inevitable — death and taxes, right? — but in recent years we could hear the clock ticking a bit louder …
Brunson literally wrote the book on how we play the game. Sure, a lot has happened since Super/System, in theory or otherwise. But none of the players in today’s game would’ve existed without Doyle Brunson. (Some of today’s crushers weren’t even born until Brunson already had seven or eight World Series of Poker bracelets.)
His final tally, of course, was 10 bracelets, including two in the WSOP Main Event. Even though those won in 1976 and ’77 were against fields the size of an elementary school classroom, back then there was far less dead money for the taking and the players he beat were among the best in the world.
And that’s part of what made Doyle so special. The when didn’t matter — Brunson was ageless, even as he aged. He held his own year after year, session after session … at the WSOP, on the WPT, in Bobby’s Room, on High Stakes Poker, and sometimes even online. He did it all. He wrestled with the old dogs with quiet bravado and took on the young guns without fear. And even as poker evolved, he adjusted, and never stopped playing a winning game.
It’s just part of why he mattered so much — and will continue to matter — to millions in a world he immeasurably shaped.
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