Doyle Brunson is the oldest poker player and has been playing poker longer then any other poker player out there which is a huge accomplishment. Doyle was born on August 10th 1933 and has been playing poker for more then 50 years professionally. Doyle’s nickname is the Texas Dolly and that is because he was born in Texas. Brunson also has a hand named after him which is the 2/10 due to the fact he often gets lucky with this hand and has won some huge hands with those cards.
Brunson was born in a small town in Texas with a very small population and he often traveled by foot to other nearby cities. Doyle was one of the best basketball players in America in his time and probably would have played professionally if he didn’t incur a career ending injury. Doyle continued his education and obtained his Bachelor and Masters Degree before moving onto working in a salesman position. After a brief stint working as a salesman Doyle decided to leave his job and start playing poker professionally.
Through the early parts of Doyles career himself and Dwayne Hamilton played in all of the illegal internet poker games they could find in Texas. They eventually started branching off to other regions to find more action and saved up every penny they made at the tables. Poker wasn’t like it is today back then though and most of the illegal games had no rules so things would get crazy sometimes and Doyle has mentioned having guns pulled on him and such things.
Once Doyle and Dwayne saved up enough money to go to Vegas they left right away to try there shot at the big city. They lost all of the money they had saved up for there trip and at this point they decided a partnership was no longer feasible. Doyle remained to live in Vegas and continued to play poker and eventually built his bankroll back up to a comfortable level. Doyle still is one of the biggest cash players to this day and can be seen on the $4000/$8000 tables often in Vegas.
Doyle has had a lot of success playing in the WSOP and WPT as well with 10 WSOP bracelets which has him tied in second place all-time behind only Hellmuth. In the WPT Doyle has only won one bracelet, but has finished in the money five times over his career in the WPT. Brunson is one of the only players in history to win 2 WSOP main events as well winning in 76 and 77.
Apart from his stellar poker resume, Brunson has also written multiple poker books with some selling thousands of copies worldwide. His poker book is one of his most recognized accomplishments and almost every poker player has read his book at least once. Doyle has been in poker practically since it started and helped shape the way that poker is operated today. You can still watch Doyle play on television a lot as he often makes appearances on TV shows. Doyle also owns his own poker room called DoylesRoom where you can play online poker with Doyle and many other professional poker players.
Daniel Negreanu was born in Toronto, Canada and is the most popular and well known poker player to come out of Canada thus far. Daniel’s nickname is “Kid Poker” on the poker circuit which he got from players when he was young due to the fact he still looked like a kid. Before Daniel started playing poker on www.PokerStars.com he was a very good snooker player at the young age of fifteen years old and was known to hustle money at the snooker tables. At the age of sixteen Daniel started playing poker and his interests started changing from snooker to poker quickly.
Before Daniel could graduate from high school he ended up dropping out to pursue playing poker in local casinos around the Toronto area and also illegal cash games in Toronto. Once he turned twenty-one Daniel decided that it was time to take off to Las Vegas to pursue his dream of becoming a professional poker player. During his initial visit in Vegas the poker tables ended up being too much for Negreanu to handle and he ended up having to come back to Toronto.
When Daniel came back to Toronto he started building up his bankroll again on PokerStars Mac and then he ended up making it big and didn’t look back. Daniel won his first major poker events in 1997 when he won two events at the World Poker Finals. Negreanu followed these two victories up with an impressive WSOP bracelet in 1998 making him the youngest player to win one, up until 2004 when it was beaten. Daniel has continued to tear up the poker field over his career and has a total of four WSOP bracelets and 2 WPT bracelets. Daniel also has a total of 34 money finishes on the WSOP circuit and many more on the other poker circuits.
Apart from playing poker at the major events and on Poker Star, Daniel also loves to play cash games with high stakes and he also loves betting on golf with his poker buddies. In 2007 Daniel joined the Poker Stars team and he now sponsors them at the poker events he competes in. Daniel also works with a video training website where he makes professional training videos to share with the members of the website and this is where he has been spending most of his time away from the tables recently.
Daniel has also made a ton of television appearances on many different poker shows and he seems to always get a lot of camera time. He is one of the best poker players to play with because he keeps the game fun and doesn’t take it too seriously. He is always a great sport and will never come across as a bad sport when he losses which some players lack.
Negreanu just recently released his first book and the book is also full of other information from his poker buddies on PokerStars.com so it’s a good buy. He has also been featured in a video game and written hundreds of articles for the top poker magazines and websites in the world.
Daniel Negreanu has spent much of his life contributing to the pokerstars.net community and making it the mainstream hobby which it has become today. Without players like Daniel poker might not be where it is today and it’s a good thing we have some players like Negreanu who spend so much time contributing to the overall poker community.
With all of the online poker rooms out there today there are plenty of people playing poker and the majority of online poker players spend there time playing tournaments. The reason the majority of poker players at rooms such as CakePoker play in tournaments over cash games is because it’s less of an investment. With a lot of online poker players on a shoestring bankroll it’s important that you make the most out of your money. Your bankroll won’t increase drastically in the short term from playing tournaments, but over time it’s much more consistent then cash games.
Types of Poker Tournaments
- The most common poker tournament played is a single table nine player sit and go tournament where the top three players win money. These are simple and quick tournaments which you can complete in under an hour.
- Multi-Table tournaments are also popular and these cover any of the tournaments that have more then 10 players in it. The prize pools increase nicely when you play multi-table tournaments, but you also need to commit more time to playing.
- A heads-up tournament on SpadeClub is you against one other opponent where the winner takes the prize pool. I personally like heads-up tournaments because you only need to bear one opponent to win money and once you learn how they play you should be able to easily beat them.
- Freeroll tournaments are tournaments put on by most online poker rooms where it’s free for the players to join and you also get the chance to win money. The prize pool money comes from the poker room and the tournaments are set-up to draw in players to the poker room.
- Rebuy tournaments are tournaments where players can rebuy into the tournament for a pre-determined amount of time. These tournaments have huge prize pools because of the rebuy money being added to the prize pool, but they take some time to play.
- Satellite poker tourneys are tournaments that you join where the prize pool isn’t money, but instead a ticket to another poker event. Many online poker players make it to events like the WSOP events through online satellite tournaments so it’s worth checking them out.
As with cash games you still need to display some bankroll management skills when you play in tournaments. Bankroll management is especially important through the beginning of your journey because you need to build up your bankroll. Make sure you don’t join tournaments that are going to take a big chunk out of your bankroll. If you have a $100 in your account then you should be playing $5 tournaments until you can increase your bankroll to at least $200.
Online poker tournaments at titanpoker.com are played very quickly and every player is on a timer so you don’t need to worry about slow players making the tournament take forever to play. You won’t win $500 pots in tournaments like in cash games, but you also won’t lose any either. If you try and rush making money you end up losing it so take your time and build up your bankroll through playing low limit tournaments.