Doyle Brunson

Doyle 'Texas Dolly' Brunson is one of the old school poker legends. Before professional poker was as respectable as it is today, Brunson began his career following great Texas players like Johnny Moss and Amarillo Slim Preston as a road gambler, travelling the country looking for illegal games before finally settling in Las Vegas.

The first player to win a $1 million poker tournament, Brunson has won nine World Series of Poker bracelets throughout his career. However, his greatest achievement is probably the book that was once considered to be the bible of poker: Super/System.

Although Super/System is now somewhat outdated due to changes in the structure of the game, and has since been superceded by later work by writers like David Sklansky and Tom McEvoy and TJ Cloutier, Super/System was the book that transformed poker by giving ordinary players an insight into the way that the professionals like Brunson played and won. So much so that Brunson believes that having written the book cost him a hell of a lot of money.

Mostly a historical curiosity today, it was still, until very recently, the book that provided the best insights into Texas Hold'Em, the game that Brunson referred to as 'The Cadillac of Poker'. Although other writers have passed Brunson by, his book still deserves a place on the shelf of every keen poker player.