Godfather of Poker

The story of Doyle Brunson, an American treasure and the greatest poker player of all time, is one for the ages. Its a story of guts and glory, of good luck and bad, of triumph and unspeakable tragedy, of courage and grace. He has survived whippings, gun fights, stabbings, mobsters (the real-life ones portrayed in the movie Casino), murderers, and a death sentence when, riddled with incurable cancer, he was given months to live by doctors who told him his hand was played out. Apparently, fate had never played poker with Brunsonhe lived. Of a group of 32 men he played poker with in the tough alleys of Texas, just he and one other survived the treacherous perils of that life. A master of the bluff, his most outrageous bluff came after being pistol-whipped and told hes going to die with a gunman pointing a pistol at his forehead. Again, he lived. Hes gambled for millions of dollarsand with his life against the real-life mobsters and killers made famous in the movie Casinoand was the biggest sports bettor in the world with a reputation of betting enormous sums of money on just about anything. Doyle has not only made more money at golf than anyone else until Tiger Woods came along, he once bet one million dollars on a single holethat, when he was virtually wheelchair-bound and could barely stand. Hes been hard-up flat broke more times than hes got fingers and has won millions of dollars just as many times. Brunson has seen it all: from the athletic dreams and a leg shattered by a freak injury which waylaid his path to the NBA (he was drafted by the Lakers), to the devastating death of his first-born daughter, to outrageous exploits like trying to discover Noahs Ark and raise the Titanic. Doyles rollercoaster of a life defines the saying: Truth is stranger than fiction.