Doyle Brunson Recalls the Old Days of WSOP

Doyle Brunson, the 72-year-old legend who made a living playing poker before it was cool, vividly recalls the conversation he had decades ago with another forefather of poker.

"We were sitting there at the 1st World Series and Benny Binion told me, "This thing is really going to take off. Some day, we're going to have at least 100 people here," Brunson said.

A bit of an underestimation, don't you think?

The main event at this year's World Series of Poker includes a whopping 8,000-plus entrants, a field so big, there's no way to get them all in Binion's old-school downtown casino, where a group of 38 made up the first WSOP field in 1970.

"Much more lucrative than I ever could have imagined," said Brunson, one of dozens of poker players who have become stars, complete with their own publicists and Web sites, in the wake of a poker boom the last few years.

Gambling, and the idea of winning something for nothing, always has had allure. But of all the games that legally can be played in a casino, blackjack, craps, roulette, none is more time consuming and more of a grind than poker, especially no-limit Texas Hold 'Em, the engine upon which the World Series of Poker is based.

"It's like a lottery now," Brunson said. "You still have to hit the lottery to win. A few of us have more tickets, but you still have to hit it. I don't think the main event will ever be won by a known player again."

Of course, Brunson doesn't need to win these tournaments to pay the bills or build his reputation. It gives him a certain freedom when he walks into the gambling casino, a celebrity on the verge of needing security guards to help him wade through autograph seekers during bathroom breaks.

"My only objective is to win the tournament," he said. "I'm not here to get in the money. If I can't win, it doesn't matter to me whether I finish 7,000th or third."

July 29, 2006
Posted By Tom Jones
Staff Editor, CasinoGamblingWeb.com    Previous Page | Internet Gambling | Top Online Casinos | Submit News!

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