Doylebrunson.com is the official personal site of Legendary 10 time World Series of Poker Champion www.DoyleBrunson.com, is exclusively powered and managed by Level Media on behalf of Doyle Brunson.-Information in this document is subject to change without notice. The significance of the 10-2 hand in poker, for Doyle Brunson anyway, is that it has been the luckiest hands among his long, illustrious career. Having played professionally since back before the very first World Series of Poker (WSOP) in 1970, Brunson is the proud receptacle of 10 coveted WSOP bracelets, leaving him tied in second place with. The “Doyle Brunson hand” made its first appearance in the World Series of Poker in 1976, where Doyle Brunson and Jesse Alto were the last two players remaining at the final table. The last 2 players of the seventh World Series of Poker were fighting it out on even scales when Brunson made a move with a holding that would become known as the.

In order to be a legend, you must loom large in theimagination of your peers. People will give you nicknames, write books aboutyou, and places and things will be named after you. In the world of poker, itisn’t enough to just win big, you need to win big regularly, consistently, andwith style. Poker legend Doyle“Texas Dolly” Brunson is one such man. Not only did he literally write thebook on poker strategy, there’s even a poker hand named after him.

When Gambling Was forOutlaws

84-year-old Doyle Brunson has spent over 50 years playinghigh-stakes poker in every kind of tournament, championship, and casino thereis. In the early days of poker, professional gambling was unheard of, and mostwagering was done in hidden back rooms of dangerous bars run by pimps andthieves. A gambler could make hundreds of dollars per night with a solidstrategy and a lucky streak, but he could just as easily meet the business endof a knife or a gun.

Doyle Brunson admitted to being beaten and robbed severaltimes while gambling in joints along ‘Bloodthirsty Highway,’ the gambler’schain of back-room card games in Texas and beyond. Eventually, “Texas Dolly”met up with “Sailor” Roberts and “Amarillo” Slim, and a Texas poker trio wasborn. While they all bore the nicknames of legends, their partnership waslikely born out of necessity. There is much less danger when traveling innumbers; each player could watch the other’s back. Together, these three amigoswere dubbed the original Texas Road Gamblers.

The Cadillac of Poker

Though he hails from Texas, Brunson was playing classic pokervariants like 5 card draw and 7 card stud for years before he even heard ofTexas hold‘em. In classic poker games, a player only bets twice. With hold‘em,there are four betting opportunities. Brunson called hold‘em a “thinking man’sgame” and “the Cadillac of Poker.” He fully embraced the game, and began toprefer hold’em as his poker game of choice. He accurately predicted that Texashold’em would one day become ‘The Game’ poker players would play the most.

But before Texas hold’em met with the popularity it enjoystoday, the game was hard to find, even for professional poker stars like theTexas Road Gamblers. In the late 50s, LasVegas was one of the only places a gambler could play hold’emprofessionally, and Vegas was hardly in its heyday. The famous Las Vegas Strip wasin its infancy, and the Vegas mega resorts had not yet exploded onto the worldgambling scene. The only place you could play hold’em was in the Golden NuggetCasino in Downtown Las Vegas. As the floor was covered in oily sawdust, thehold’em room in the Golden Nugget rarely drew any high rollers.

A Brush with Death

Daniel Negreanu

Soon after his hold’em epiphany, Brunson was holding on fordear life after a cancer diagnosis at the early age of 28. Doctors gave himonly four months to live, but when they performed surgery a few weeks later,they found no traces of cancer. The ‘spontaneous remission’ spurred a new leaseon life for Brunson, as well as a big change in his poker game.

Brunson’s brush with death put a different spin on the wayhe saw winning. He concentrated less on losing the pot, and more on aggressiveplaying techniques. He called more bluffs, and went ‘all-in’ on a regularbasis. And his new style paid off. After decades of dominating the card roomcircuit, Brunson began winning big in Reno and Vegas casinos. In a casinocalled Binion’s Horseshoe, a new high stakes poker game sprung up from the oilysawdust: the World Series of Poker. The WSOP has gone on to become the premierpoker tournament in the world, and “Texas Dolly” Brunson has played in themall, and holds one of the greatest all-time poker playing records in history.

The Doyle BrunsonHand

Phil Ivey

If you are dealt a weak hand in hold’em and you go on to winthe championship with that hand, it’s a fluke. But if you are dealt the sameweak hand the following year—and you win the championship again, that hand isyours forever. Such is the case of the Doyle Brunson Hand in Texas hold’em. In the1976 WSOP, Brunson drew a 10 and a 2 as his hole cards. His opponent had A-Jbefore the flop, which came up A-J-10, giving Brunson a pair of 10s and hisopponent two pair. Brunson went all in with his weaker hand. The turn and theriver showed a 2 and another 2, giving Brunson a full house to win $230,000 andthe championship!

The following year in 1977, Brunson drew the exact same 10-2hand in the final round of the championship. The flop of 10-8-5 gave Brunson apair and his opponent (8-5 hole) two pair. Once again, the 2 hit on the turn,and Brunson had two pair. His opponent went all-in, and Brunson called. Whenthe river card was dealt, it came up 10, and Brunson won the championship forthe second year in a row (cash – $340,000), with the exact same full house of10s and 2s. From that moment on, the 10-2 hand has been called the DoyleBrunson.

The Godfather ofGambling

Doyle Brunson has won over 6 million dollars in total livetournament winnings over his life. This figure does not account for his ‘unofficial’card games casinos, back room bars, and dusty saloons. But needless to say,“Texas Dolly” has earned a jolly good living from playing poker. He has won 10WSOP gold bracelets marking his 10 championship wins over the years. Butperhaps his biggest contribution to the game of poker was his book on thesubject. Doyle Brunson’s Super System: A Course in Power Poker, changed pokerculture forever. Before he published his poker primer, a gambler’s strategy wasa secret. Like a magician revealing his secrets, Super System revealed a wealthof tips and tricks to a hungry mob of new gamblers.

The Poker Bible

Super System not only explained Brunson’s personal gamblingsystem and methods, it provided key insights into the psychology of the game.Such psychological strategies highlight the need to hide one’s emotions whileplaying (wearing a poker face), and the ability to pick up on other player’s‘tells’ to gain information on the type of hand they are holding. A playerunconsciously delivers this information via nervous twitches, a shifting of theeyes, or a scratch of the nose. All of these signs and more can be examined togive a gambler a winning edge over an inferior opponent.

Super System also explains how to apply reason whileplaying, and the book provides tons of statistics and facts surrounding pokerplay and pokerstrategies. The book opened up the poker world to amateur and professionalalike, and contributed to an explosion in the popularity of poker, tournaments,and online gambling. Brunson said that by publishing the book, it probably costhim more money than he was paid to write it.

Doyle Brunson was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame, anhonor originated in 1979 by Benny Binion, the owner of Binion’s Horseshoe andthe birthplace of the WSOP. The PokerHall of Fame lists the most prominent players of the game, whether they wongreat fortunes or otherwise left a lasting mark on the game of poker. Among themore notorious names in the Hall of Fame is James Butler Hickok, aka “WildBill.” A notorious Wild West figure and poker player, “Wild Bill” was shot inthe back while playing a hand of poker. That hand included two aces and two 8s,which has since been called the Dead Man’s Hand. The Poker Hall of Fame alsoincludes Bryan “Sailor” Roberts and Thomas “Amarillo Slim” Preston, Doyle“Texas Dolly” Brunson’s poker pals from his Texas Road Gambler days.

There are exactly 169 possible starting hands in a game of Texas Hold’em Poker. The most famous ones of all are the goodies – the pocket Aces, the A-K suited, or even the worst possible 7-2 off-suit, things of this nature. So what it is that makes a menial hand like 10-2 so significant?

For all intents and purposes, 10-2 doesn’t sound like a very good hand. Suited or not, it just doesn’t have all that much potential to develop into a winner. However, there is one legendary card player who will take this hand every time it comes his way, and that’s the infamous Doyle Brunson; good old Texas Dolly himself.
The significance of the 10-2 hand in poker, for Doyle Brunson anyway, is that it has been the luckiest hands among his long, illustrious career. Having played professionally since back before the very first World Series of Poker (WSOP) in 1970, Brunson is the proud receptacle of 10 coveted WSOP bracelets, leaving him tied in second place with Johnny Chan, just a single bracelet behind the current leader Phil Hellmuth.

Two of those sought-after bracelets were awarded to Texas Dolly for winning the WSOP Championship Main Event, and they just happen to be in consecutive years, 1976 and 1977. The most phenomenal aspect of those achievements was that both of the final hands, at the final tables, were won by Doyle Brunson while holding the obsequious hand of 10-2.

At the end of a tedious WSOP Main Event in 1976, Brunson found himself competing heads-up against worthy opponent Jesse Alto for the championship. When the oh-so fallible 10-2, suited in spades, appeared in Brunson’s hand, he was the strong chip leader. Alto, on the other hand, was dealt A-J off-suit, an excellent starting hand for heads-up play and the perfect opportunity to make a comeback. Alto raised, Doyle called, the Flop came down A-J-10 (2 hearts, 1 spade).

Alto clearly had the advantage, pairing his Ace and Jack, while Brunson held only a pair of 10s. With few other options and a heavy stack, Brunson hoped to intimidate Jesse out of the pot with an all-in shove. However, Alto’s confidence led to a decisive call. The Turn brought another 2, but still left Brunson trailing until the River came down, a 10, completing a Flush and $220k prize for Brunson, on top of a horrifically bad beat for Alto.

The 10-2 had struck on a fluke, or so everyone thought at the time. Brunson was on top of his game and found himself back in the hot seat one year later at the 1977 WSOP Main Event final table, face to face with Bones Berland.

Once more, Texas Dolly had the lead on chips when the mystic hand arrived before him – 10-2. It was not suited this time, but neither was Berland’s decidedly pitiful 8-5. It wasn’t until the Flop came down, 10-8-5 rainbow, that either player showed any interest in shoveling chips into the pot. Doyle felt pretty confident with his top pair 10s, but Bones had to know he had the best hand pairing the 8s and 5s.

Being the low stack, Berland slow-played his pairs, which may have been his biggest mistake. Brunson called up to the Turn, when a 2 dropped giving him the better two pair hand. Brunson bet high and Berland pushed his whole stack, only to be instantly called the by defending champion. Then the most mysterious thing of all happened – the River came up a 10. It was the exact same hand, the 10s-over-2s Full House that had given Brunson the championship bracelet the year before. He took the consecutive bracelet and another $340k in prize money.

From that moment on, the confounding 10-2 has been known to all in the poker world as The Doyle Brunson Hand.