July 1, 2022
Doyle Brunson, also known as “Texas Dolly,” still played poker every day even as he approached his 90’s. He’s as close to a living history book as we have for the game, which is probably why many call him “The Godfather of Poker.” In fact, while he didn’t invent Texas Hold ‘Em, he is the earliest-known person to have witnessed the game being played.
I spent time with Doyle in Las Vegas in the summer of 2022 for this story that ran in the July 2022 issue of Texas Monthly. It’s about tall tales, the price of winning, and what it means to have a life’s work.
Here’s an excerpt:
The field was whittled down one player after another, and, bit by bit, Brunson amassed a war chest of chips. Three players remained. Soon, a champion would be crowned. The crowd grew. The cameras flashed.
That’s when Brunson started to lose, folding each hand without even trying to win. Jack Binion, the casino’s president, saw what was happening. He paused the game and marched the players into a private office, where he tore into Brunson.
“You’re going to cause a big scandal here,” Binion said. “You just can’t do this.”
“Jack,” Brunson explained, “I just don’t want the publicity.”
Photograph by Roger Kisby/REDUX Pictures
Back in Longworth, the tiny, conservative West Texas town where Brunson grew up, most folks thought he made an honest living. They knew him as the son of a farmer, a former state-champion athlete, and a master’s graduate from a Baptist college. If they found out how he really spent his days, if they knew who he spent his time with, well—Brunson was worried that his entire family would be shunned.
And so Texas Dolly walked out of Binion’s office, across the casino floor, and out of the Horseshoe. Here was a man known to boast that he had once played poker for five straight days without sleeping. Now he claimed he was too tired, nauseated, and dizzy to even sit at the table.
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As he turned his back on a world title, he told himself there would be other fortunes to win, other chapters of his legend to write. And maybe, one day, they would come without the guilt.