Doyle Knew SC’s Were Played Out In 1981
But he didn’t change that section in SS2.
SS was the reason SC's got so popular (and maybe over played), and back then there was no internet or youtube to get information, so maybe he wrote these things as a reverse tell for the people who try to use it against him : O
LOL. Love the last sentence.
Doyle somewhat wavered on that over the following forty years but I don’t recall seeing where he ever fully embraced it; Mike Caro wrote that as gracious as he was, he really did not like all the attention & publicity despite all the extra money.
Like the line from IT: “It realized that it did not want new things, that it had been content to eat and sleep and eat and sleep forever.”
But Doyle probably concluded that Sklansky would’ve written his books regardless and that there was going to be nonsense like Slim’s book anyway, so he might as well do it right and get ahead of the curve.
He also likely never thought he’d make it to 80 when he was talking to Alvarez. I first saw him in 1996 and he looked horrible. I might’ve taken Stu in a last longer.
SS was the reason SC's got so popular (and maybe over played), and back then there was no internet or youtube to get information, so maybe he wrote these things as a reverse tell for the people who try to use it against him : O
He certainly adapted to it. The main criticism I’ve seen of SS2 is the NLHE section was basically a cut n’ paste job, though for whatever reason he did name Buck Buchanan as being X from the key 76s hand from the ‘77 ME.
Ol’ Buck has a wild WSOP page to go along with his ring from Super Bowl IV.
Is the page from Super System? From the New Yorker profile on Brunson?
still a leit HoF for being able to see the poker meta shift from 70's, 80s and 90s and 00s and still be a WINNER at HIGH STAKES.
now would prolyl be the toughest ut he makes a case for being the cash GOST due to his reign across all eras
In his book, he talks about scs being better than "trouble hands", unsuited high cards like QJo. There is a Life Magazine article on holdem from before his book, like about 1970, which clearly is talking about NLHE. That article mentions that 54s is maybe a playable hand.
In his book, he mentions how in the WSOP ME he raised and then called a 3! 3-ways with 76s, made trip 7s and stacked someone or maybe both players. He implied he knew the other players had 99+/AQ+ and that is what they thought he had. He doesn't mention, but it must have been fairly deep.
Scs play better in that type of situation than in a loose 1/3 or 2/5 game where it is like 5 to a flop.
He was beating the big mixed game, like 3K/6K limit and 750/1500 capped in NL/PL games, at Bellagio until his death. That game does not run as much as it did 10-20 years ago. Not sure if he played public cash straight NLHE or PLO in the 21st century, but that mixed game was a much bigger game.
Doyle's book or chapter doesn't discuss much about playing loose or tight. The mid to high stakes games from the 1960s and 70s seem from the book to play somewhat similar to 2/5 games now. There seemed to be a lot of limped pots.
Doyle does seem to recommend playing small pps, scs, and Axs. He mentions limping in ep with a small pp. He also mentions that he got invited to private NLHE games because he played loose, presumably playing all those speculative hands mentioned. In the private games, those hands were probably more profitable against bad players, as well as making him not look like a tight pro.
I would recommend reading it. It is more discussion of flop textures and postflop play. He calls unsuited high card hands worse than AJ/KQ trouble hands that can make the second best hand. He discusses double gutshots, which are disguised, unlike flush draws, which are obvious when they hit.
First time I played at the Mirage was Labor Day weekend 1994. Doyle, Chip, Chan, Seidel, Lyle Berman, 3-4 others were playing 2-4K HORSE in the back corner on the raised podium.
Doyle was still walking unaided then, with a severe limp and a 5XL shirt. You could see the ghost of the young basketball player in the SS photos and what might’ve been without the accident. FWIW he replied affirmatively to a tweet where I said he loved basketball more but especially in hindsight thinks he was better at the mile (Larry Bird once said something somewhat similar).
For the record I’ve read everything Doyle ever published & interview he gave, and at no point imo was he ever diminished the way Moss was or scared of super high stakes.
It has been a long time since I’ve read the NLHE chapter in SS, but the idea that it might be applicable to today’s 2-5 games is intriguing.
X was Buck Buchanan, per SS2
I know that hand was played in 1877, but wow that hand was played poorly by multiple players.
Writing the book and inspiring ppl to put in 20% of effective stacks preflop with 76s, that's good for the game...would not regret writing it. Thanks Doyle.
I know that hand was played in 1877, but wow that hand was played poorly by multiple players.
It looks like they were down to two six-handed tables, and it was winner take all back then, so 340K chips in play.
Junior is a short stack but that’s still a shaky shove with that trash hand, though there’s at least a logic of sorts behind it.
Buck’s preflop play makes Chan thinking his dry KK was a 2-1 favorite over Frenchy’s TT plus a four-flush on Fifth Street look like the moon landing.
He had to be waiting to see if an ace flopped. If he really was “one of the finest NLHE players in the world”, then Doyle had to have been making over a million a year in the cash games and he DEFINITELY shouldn’t have written that book.
It looks like they were down to two six-handed tables, and it was winner take all back then, so 340K chips in play.
I think they were down to a single table of 7 as I have the 1977 Main Event final results as:
- 1. Doyle Brunson
- 2. Gary Berland
- 3. Milo Jacobson
- 4. Sailor Roberts
- 5. Bob Hooks
- 6. Buck Buchanan
- 7. Junior Whited
FYI I just bumped a thread in NVG from 2013 where Mason posted the interview with the late Bobby “The Wizard” Hoff that was the last chapter in Harrington On Cash Games Vol II. He talks a good deal about Buck Buchanan, unsuited big cards, small SCs, position, the typical mistakes bad NL players (like me) make, Doyle, Stuey, and Bobby Baldwin.
A condensed version would’ve been a valuable appendix to SSNLHE IMO.
Doyle, Hoff & Harrington all apparently considered Buck a great player, which makes his fatal play at the 1977 Final Table even more inexplicable. Must’ve caught a dose of FPS hoping to double through Doyle.
FYI I just bumped a thread in NVG from 2013 where Mason posted the interview with the late Bobby “The Wizard” Hoff that was the last chapter in Harrington On Cash Games Vol II. He talks a good deal about Buck Buchanan, unsuited big cards, small SCs, position, the typical mistakes bad NL players (like me) make, Doyle, Stuey, and Bobby Baldwin.
To save everyone else:
Hoff says they were playing like 400xBB deep in the games Doyle was playing, which is why SCs were playable.
In the video from the 1979 WSOP, Hoff was one of the youngest players.
Hoff implies games were generally NL earlier on, and limit game in later, particularly in casinos. They played NL 5CS in the 1930s as shown in "Cincinnatti Kid". Before they started televising NLHE, it was almost all limit poker in the US, but mostly PL in Europe.
Bobby mentions PL preflop/NL after, which I recall hearing about at least 8-10 years before that interview. Maybe in the mid 90s.
Crazy stories from Doyle about Hal Fowler.
https://web.archive.org/web/200805131144...
Maybe he was DB Cooper.
Bobby & Hal
