Autobiography of Doyle Brunson

The story of Doyle Brunson, the greatest poker player of all time, is one for the ages, a story of guts and glory, of good luck and bad, of triumph and unspeakable tragedy, of courage and grace under fire. It is a story of beating the odds, of a man who bet one million dollars on a hole of golf-that when he could barely stand!-who is known as the biggest sports bettor in the world, and who has bet enormous sums of money on just about anything. He's been hard-up flat broke more times than can be counted and he has sat on top of millions. A master of the bluff, here is a man whose most outrageous bluff came with a gunman pointing a pistol at his forehead. Brunson has seen it all: Athletic dreams and a leg shattered by a freak injury which waylaid his path to the NBA (he was drafted by the Lakers) and opened the doors for the most remarkable gambling career ever, of dodging bullets, bandits, lawmen, murderers and cutthroats while plying his poker trade in the back rooms and back roads of Texas with the legendary Amarillo Slim and Sailor Roberts. He has survived whippings, gun fights, stabbings, mobsters, killers-of a group of 32 men he played poker with in the tough alleys of Texas, just he and one other survived all these years-and a bout with cancer where the doctor told him his hand was played out, he was drawing dead, he was a goner. Apparently, fate had never played poker with Brunson; he lived.Twice a winner of the prestigious World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, he's won millions and lost millions-sometimes in seconds-but decidedly more of the former than the latter. Every day, still, Brunson can be found playing in the highest stakes poker games in the world, often with as much as one million dollars in front of him. At the Poker Hall of Fame, they call him Texas Dolly, but his real name is Doyle Brunson. To every one of the 75 million people play poker each year, Doyle Brunson, author of the best-selling "bible" of poker, Doyle Brunson's Super System, is THE legend, THE king, THE MAN-the Babe Ruth of Poker-the greatest gambler and poker player who has ever lived.So come sit in with Dolly as he confronts the best, brightest and boldest gamblers in the world and shares the secrets of an American legend.

Doyle 'Texas Dolly' Brunson, two-time world series poker champion, is the greatest poker player in the world and a living legend. He is the author of the best-selling "bible" of poker, Doyle Brunson's Super System, the best poker book ever written, and Poker Wisdom of a Champion.

Mike Cochran, an award-winning AP reporter and three-time nominee for the Pulitzer Prize, grew up several miles from Doyle Brunson, and spent 39 years with the international news service roving Texas, interviewing its offbeat characters and reporting on its darkest crimes and deepest secrets. He has covered everything from the Kennedy assassination and Ruby trial, to the Apollo 11 moon-landing mission and the Branch Davidian siege and several of the state's high-profile murder trials.

He's written four books including Texas vs. Davis, the definitive book on the murder case of Fort Worth millionaire T. Cullen Davis. Deliver Us From Evil, a trilogy of true-crime stories, included the scandalized Dallas minister Walker Railey and the case of falsely accused fugitive Kenneth Miller, the inspiration for a CBS Television movie, Fugitive Among Us, starring Eric Roberts and Peter Strauss. With co-author John Lumpkin, he wrote West Texas.

Cochran has also won a Katie award (for his book Shattered), six Headliner awards, two Headliners Star Reporter of the Year, the Associated Press Managing Editors Top Performance Award, and the prestigious Stanley Walker journalism award in 1987 and 1991.