Doyle Brunson
Poker's Texas Dolly

Among the Immutable Laws of the Universe is the Law of Legends:

In any group, there can be only one First.

And in the world of poker, the game everybody is talking about, watching on television, reading about and trying to master, the First has always been and continues to be the legendary Doyle "Texas Dolly" Brunson.

Brunson, now 71, is the Babe Ruth, the Wilt Chamberlain, the Arnold Palmer of poker. He basically invented the game of Texas Hold'em. He was the star of the infamous band of traveling poker sharks, the Texas Rounders. He was the first of the high stakes hotel poker players in Las Vegas. He has won an unprecedented nine World Series of Poker events, including the two back-to-back world championships. He is a best-selling author. In the world of professional poker, he is king.

Brunson has been winning with good and bad hands all his life. Raised dirt poor in rural Texas, he was a natural athlete who went to college on basketball and track scholarships. His NBA career with the then-Minneapolis Lakers ended before it began when he shattered his leg in an accident at the gypsum factory where he was working pre-season. The leg never did heal properly, and to this day, his place at a poker table is easily spotted by the crutch standing nearby.

To pay his bills after the accident, Brunson took up poker. His upbringing and early life as an outsider had made him a lifelong observer of people, and his skill at reading faces was his ace in the hole; he got very good, very fast. But the next hand wasn't so good. In 1962, he was diagnosed with cancer and given three months to wrap up his affairs. But he called that bluff and the other guy folded, and 40 years later, Brunson is still at the table, and still winning.

Considered the patriarch of modern poker and the person most responsible for its rise from smoky backrooms to the pop-culture spotlight, Brunson was the leader of the Texas Rounders, a group of men who, in the words of The History Channel, "cleaned Texas dry" playing high-stakes poker in the 1950s and '60s. Outrunning both the law and the hijackers who preyed on winners of illegal big-money card games, he eventually landed in Las Vegas where he became one of the city's earliest tourist attractions: audiences would gather in awe to watch him play.

In 1978, Brunson changed the game of poker forever with his book Super/System, a complete guide to Texas Hold'em and other games of poker. Essential reading for everyone from weekend dabblers to high-stakes gamblers, the book remains the bible of poker, the top-selling poker book of all time, still selling 14,000 copies a month.

Super/System 2, recently published, includes new games, new strategies and insight from not only Brunson himself but also some of the other biggest names in poker.

As well, Brunson has an autobiography, a book on online poker, and the tales of the greatest hands he's ever seen all scheduled to be published in the coming months.

Brunson shows no signs of slowing down. He still has the eye, the nerve and the skill and just in the fall of 2004, won another million-dollar World Poker Tour event at the Bicycle Club in Los Angeles, CA. He is a spokesperson for the new online poker website DoylesRoom.com. He plays poker every day and often hosts high-stakes Texas Hold'em games that cost $100,000 just to sit down. He'll win, and sometimes lose, $50,000 or more on a single hand. But as he recently told the History Channel, "to be a successful gambler you have to have a complete disregard for money." That and a keen eye for what's happening in the eyes of the other guy.