Our Verdict:
"The other day, somebody said to me, ‘You've lost 10% of your game'. I said, 'Well yeah, but fortunately I was 30% ahead of everybody else to start with'."
So says Doyle 'Texas Dolly' Brunson who is often heralded as the best poker player of all time.
He started off his poker career back in the 1950s when, with 'Amarillo Slim' Preston and 'Sailor' Roberts, he was the very definition of a rounder, travelling around Texas looking for gambling action.
His quest for action ultimately took him to Vegas, of course, and he has divided his time between the home of gambling and a bolthole in Montana for several decades.
Brunson was the first player to win $1million in a poker tournament and he has won 10 WSOP bracelets (a record he shares with Johnny Chan and Phil Hellmuth). He is one of only four players to win the World Series of Poker main event more than once (in 1976, 1977).
Brunson is probably best known for writing the book that is still considered to be the bible of poker - Super/System. In it he puts forward a theory of what he calls "power poker" and explains in detail all his secrets to winning. The book helped to popularise the game of poker as well as educate the masses on successful strategies.
In fact, Brunson said that so many people were using his techniques that he actually had to change his game because so many people knew his tricks. More recently he published an updated version of his theories in Super/System 2.
Despite being well into his seventies Brunson still plays in the World Series of Poker but he makes his real money in ultra-high stakes cash games (typically $10,000-$20,000 limit holdem games). The fact that he is such a good cash game and tournament player is one of his most amazing accomplishments and one of his defining characteristics because most players agree that there are different sets of skills needed to succeed in those vastly different environments.
Brunson has the honour of having two Texas holdem hands named after him. One hand, 10-2 of any suit, bears his name as both his World Series of Poker main event wins were won from this starting hand, in both cases completing a full house. Doyle has expressed his displeasure at being known for the hand because it is generally considered a weak starting hand in holdem.
Another hand known as a 'Doyle Brunson' is A-Q of any suit because, as he says on page 519 of Super/System 2, he "never plays this hand."
He says the question he's been asked the most over the years is: "What does it take to make a good poker player?"
His response: "Who knows what it takes? I don't know. It's an innate ability that you can't describe ...you just can't explain it. People have tried, but they can't do it. It's something inside you that causes you to pull away from the field...It's a sixth sense, or an inclination to win, or something."