American poker legend Doyle Brunson revealed how he saw a man shot in the head during a poker game. The all time great shared the story on Twitter during the COVID 19 lockdown in 2020, along with several other tales from his early career.
A Shooting in a Fort Worth Pool Hall
Brunson has told many shocking stories about his poker career in the old days. The Texan often said that the toughest part of poker back then was not winning the money, but actually getting out of town with it.
Illegal games often attracted the attention of both the law and the lawless, making life as a card playing professional a dangerous proposition. Fort Worth, Texas, was one such location in Brunson’s past that contained plenty of such stories.
When asked for his favourite Fort Worth memory, Brunson said: “My 1st year as a pro, I was playing in a pool hall on the stockyards when a man came in and shot a player. His brains seemed to splatter all over the wall.”
Following the murder, Brunson explained: “We all ran out the back door to keep from talking to cops. We had to go through a cold, cold creek.”
Calls for a Doyle Brunson Movie
The story immediately sparked calls for a Doyle Brunson movie. It would likely be the biggest and most popular poker film ever produced.
The problem seems to be that many of the details are so shocking that Brunson was never willing to share them publicly. Potential legal issues and the possibility of old scores being settled kept him silent on the worst of it.
Armed Security and Machine Guns
Playing Texas Hold’em in Texas was clearly a different beast from the glitzy card rooms of today.
One of Brunson’s Twitter followers mentioned his own game was robbed at gunpoint in 2019. Brunson replied that he was amazed the players weren’t carrying for protection: “Nobody pulled on them? No chance in my day. It would have been like the showdown at the OK Corral.”
He explained that in his entire career he was only the victim of an in game robbery five times. His explanation of why clarified the situation: “Most games had armed security standing around. One in Duncan Oklahoma the game had a manned 50 caliber machine gun on the roof where we played.”
More Wild Stories from the Felt
Brunson shared two more tales from the old days.
One told how he once lost a pot in a lowball game and his opponent keeled over and died while reaching for the chips. This started a discussion among fans about what the correct ruling would be in such a situation.
The other story came in reply to Joey Ingram asking if Brunson had ever deliberately folded a winning hand because he might get killed if he won. Brunson replied: “No, but I was in a partnership with Dickey Carson. He picked up a pat 8 in 2 to 7. He was in the pot with ‘Patch’ from Dallas. Patch had been losing all night and he took a knife, slammed it on the table and said he was going to kill anyone who beat him.”
Brunson had one of the most colourful careers of any poker player, and these stories are just a small window into what the game looked like before it moved into casinos and onto television.
Doyle Brunson passed away on May 14, 2023, at the age of 89. He remains one of the most influential figures in the history of poker.
