With top two pair on a flop with lots of draws, Alto made a pot-sized bet. The flop was A-J-10 with 2 hearts and 1 spade. Preflop, Alto raised with his unsuited A-J, an excellent heads-up hand. In 1976, the WSOP was only in its 7th year, but was growing in popularity.ĭoyle Brunson was in the prime of his poker playing career and was gunning for his first Main Event title.ĭown to heads-up play against a final-table fixture of the day in Jesse Alto, The Doyle Brunson hand would make its first mark on the poker world. The 1976 WSOP: Doyle Brunson’s 10-2 makes its mark Doyle Brunson en route to his first championship at the final table of the 1976 WSOP Main Event. In 2005, Doyle won his 10th WSOP bracelet holding the eerily-similar 10-3. In his best-selling 1979 strategy manual Super System, Brunson says that he “never plays this hand”. To a lesser degree, A-Q is also associated with Doyle Brunson because of his well-known distaste for the hand. Who could blame him with his track record? Doyle himself still has a fondness for playing the hand as much as possible. To this day, the 10-2 is now nicknamed the “Doyle Brunson hand” by poker players in cardrooms around the world.

Typically, the 10-2 is an absolute trash hand in Texas Hold’em with almost zero potential value, even to someone of Brunson’s stature. Most amazingly, Doyle held the pitiful 10-2 to win both WSOP titles.

For the crowning hands of Doyle Brunson’s back-to-back championships he had to suck out twice against dominating hands.ĭoyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson, a living legend and one of the greatest players to ever grace the felt, couldn’t be stopped when he held his new favorite hand. Take the final hands of both the 19 WSOP Main Events. The Doyle Brunson hand perhaps illustrates that best. Long before the days of online poker, the game still had its incredibly bad beats. The Doyle Brunson Hand was the original ultimate bad beat Phil Galfond Gets into Trouble with the Doyle Brunson Hand.The 1976 WSOP: Doyle Brunson’s 10-2 makes its mark.The Doyle Brunson Hand was the original ultimate bad beat.

Doyle Brunson poker hand