Doyle Brunson Stepping Aside from WSOP Tournament Play
On Wednesday, poker legend Doyle Brunson (pictured) revealed that he doesn’t plan to play any tournaments at this year’s World Series of Poker. The 10-time bracelet winner and former back-to-back Main Event champion cited Father Time in a Tweet to his nearly 400,000 followers: “Afraid I am finally gonna give in to Father Time and pass on tournament play at WSOP. #toomanyhours.” Whether he’ll make good on his Tweet remains to be seen, as WSOP officials have stated that they’ll try to lure Brunson back to the Rio in some capacity.
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WSOP Vice President Ty Stewart commented in a media conference call on Wednesday that he wishes Brunson the best, even if it means retiring from WSOP tournaments this year: “We’d like to tip our hat to Doyle. Doyle has to do what’s best for Doyle. There comes a time when everyone has to hang it up… We’re hopeful that we might talk him to Brett Favre’ing and getting into the Main Event.”
Later on in the call, it was revealed that WSOP officials convinced Brunson to play in last year’s Main Event as well. According to Stewart, Brunson is one of the most influential players ever to step foot at a poker table: “Doyle is likely the most important living figure in the game today.”
WSOP Tournament Director Jack Effel added, “He has been a poker player his whole life. If there’s a game somewhere, he will find the game, get in the action, and the players will come… I think we will definitely see him at the WSOP one way or another.”
Brunson’s Tweet references tournament play specifically. However, the Rio and WSOP sport a variety of cash games on the side, leading some to believe that Brunson could turn out to play ring games throughout the two-month-long tournament series that begins in a couple of weeks.
And according to Stewart, there will likely be plenty of opponents for Brunson and others who turn out to play any of the games offered: “We believe we are set up for our best time ever. We have the most rooms booked at the Rio than we ever have at any point at this time in the past.”
Brunson’s 10 WSOP bracelets are tied with Johnny Chan for the second most ever. He won the Main Event in 1976 and 1977 and last claimed a piece of hardware in 2005 in a $5,000 No Limit Hold’em Short-Handed event, defeating a final table that included Scotty Nguyen and Layne Flack. He has nearly $3 million in career WSOP earnings to go with another $3.1 million in tracked tournament scores according to the Hendon Mob. Brunson last cashed in a major live poker tournament in 2011.
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