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The Godfather Of Poker: The Doyle Brunson Story (2009)

by Doyle Brunson(Favorite Author)

4 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1580422578 (ISBN13: 9781580422574)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Cardoza

review 1: Doyle Brunson's autobiography will hold wide appeal to poker players, especially those who consider themselves fans or aficianados of the game's history and personalities. Certain the appeal is a lot less for those who don't already know who Doyle Brunson is; he only serves to reinforce most of the stereotypes that many already have about poker players and gamblers, and does so almost in a matter of pride. Hard to blame him, I suppose, when you start to understand the staggering amount of money he was won playing Texas Hold'Em over the years. The problem is, while his stories of witnessing murder in illegal Fort Worth casinos and nearly being killed in a home invasion in Las Vegas are certainly compelling in their content, Doyle is just not a great writer. He writes like y... moreou'd expect an old Texas man to tell stories--spends too little time on the most important stuff, too much time on silly stuff, and repeats and rambles far too often. It's hard to tell who his target audience truly is, since he spends most of the book seeming to appeal to those who know little about gambling mentality, but then focuses on stories that are so inside it's hard to find any mass appeal. It's disappointing how fast Doyle blows through his tremendous accomplishments in the mid-2000s -- his incredible victory at the Bicycle over Lee Watkinson on the WPT (probably the greatest WPT show ever), his 9th and 10th bracelets, and his deep main event run in 2004 combined get fewer pages than one high-stakes golf game with Tony Spilotro (Doyle clearly prefers to write about golf over poker). It's also too bad that the book couldn't give us a deeper insight into Doyle's thoughts on Stu Ungar or Phil Hellmuth, the latter only mentioned twice in passing. And the last 30 pages are a rambling mess, with absolutely no content of substance but a rambling repeat of different ways to say "I love my wife, I love my kids, I sure am blessed...now what was I saying again?" This book deserved a stronger touch from an editor.Having gotten all that off my chest, I liked this book, because the stuff about Doyle's adventures on the mean streets of Texas gamblers and the beginning of modern-day Vegas, complete with mafia cheating and murderous gangsters, is really great to read about. The story of Doyle throwing the 1972 main event for fear of his family learning he was a professional gambler is pretty entertaining (Wikipedia notes this was also due to fear of the IRS; Doyle never mentions any such tax concerns in the book other than assuring us he pays all his taxes). And I am a poker fan, clearly the target audience of this book. The UIGEA coverage is minimal and the book is pre-Black Friday, and there is certainly no strategy of any kind discussed. But poker fans will surely find some history they didn't know about, and can speed-read through the boring stuff while multi-tabling anyway. Recommended, but only if you already know what poker hand is called the Doyle Brunson; otherwise, look for a different book.
review 2: In Godfather of Poker, Doyle Brunson tells the intricate story of his life, from potential basketball professional to professional poker player. The stories he tells are interesting, intriguing, and captivating until the very end of each one. And he has a lot of them. At the time of writin this he was 76, and had plenty of incredible anecdotes about sports, the times of illegal card playing and other poker playing acquaintances (which include professionals, and also notorious crime bosses).At times, his chapters lack continuity and are not always connected. The book was written over four or five years, and it lacks flow. Mike Cochran did an incredible job conglomerating all these stories into what was at least semi-chronological, but regardless the stories jump around too much. The writing is done well, and sounds like the Texas Dolly speaking, but is still a bit haphazard in execution.That being said, The Godfather of Poker is humorous, occasionally emotional, and always entertaining. From crime stories to sports stories to poker stories, the book manages to keep it entertaining for all, even those unaware of certain specifics and aspects of Brunson's adventures. This is an excellent book. less

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