Living Up to a Legend: Todd Brunson’s Career Worthy of the Hall of Fame

Living up to the legacy of a living legend and pursuing a career in a field where your father’s name is synonymous with the game has to be a tall order. Yet somehow, Todd Brunson has been able to do it, putting together a career worthy of nomination in the Poker Hall of Fame for the first time this year.

Rumor has it that Poker Hall of Fame member, two-time World Series of Poker Main Event champion and ten-time WSOP bracelet winner Doyle Brunson didn’t want his son to follow in his footsteps. But when Todd did it anyway and won his first WSOP bracelet in 2005, he was as proud as a father could be.

Doyle Brunson plays against his son, Todd.

In an interview with PokerNews conducted via email this week, the intensely-private Todd ducked questions about his family and living and playing in his father’s shadow, but he did say he had another plan before poker took over.

Todd was a pre-law student at Texas Tech University majoring in political science and minoring in history. He was working toward getting a Bachelor of Arts with a teaching certificate. He also took a number of hotel restaurant management courses, out of an interest in the field, through his three years at school.

“I was really just looking to keep open as many options as possible,” he said. “My fourth year I switched my major to poker. I was majoring in no-limit Texas hold’em with a minor in no-limit deuce to seven. People often say poker doesn’t contribute anything to society, but I can assure you, it saved at least two lives: Mine and the poor guy who would have been my boss. In all seriousness, had I not found poker – or was it vice versa? – I would probably be a trial lawyer somewhere in west Texas right now. Litigation was probably my true calling. I never lose an argument, as many in the poker world know.”

People often say poker doesn’t contribute anything to society, but I can assure you, it saved at least two lives: Mine and the poor guy who would have been my boss.

From the outset of his professional career, Brunson has remained primarily a cash-game player. Even with a name as famous as his, he never really sought out the fame tournaments began to provide as poker boomed. Brunson said it really wasn’t a conscious effort on his part.

“It had nothing to do with the spotlight,” he explained. “Fame equated to fortune for a while during the poker boom. Besides that brief period though, it was pretty useless. So the question can easily be answered by another question: How many tournament players, excluding those sponsored, have been around as long as I have and not been broke much, if not most, of the time? I looked around 25 years ago at who had and held on to the money. It was the cash game, not the tournament players. That still holds true today.”

There have been some massive swings at the tables over the years, but Brunson admitted that none were more memorable than when he won $13.5 million over a two-day $50,000/$100,000 heads-up limit hold’em session with banker Andy Beal, playing on behalf of a conglomerate of players calling themselves “The Corporation.” This match was of course featured in Michael Craig’s 2005 book The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Time.

“I’ve won and lost bigger since then, but at the time, it was life changing for all involved,” Brunson said. “One member of The Corporation even told me he would probably kill himself if I lost the rest of our bankroll. No one could even ante …

continue reading in source www.pokernews.com