Doyle Brunson was born and raised in a small town in Texas where as a child he was a very good athlete. He was so good in fact that at one point he was looking at a career in the NBA until he got injured while working at his summer job. With this dreams of being a professional athlete over Brunson returned to school where he would eventually get a Master’s degree.

It was while he was at college that Brunson started to get into poker. Had first started playing the game when he was younger but that was mainly just for fun, it was while he was at college that he started to realize that he could make real money at poker. After getting his degree he held a job for a little while but he also started playing poker professionally, it did not take him long to realize that he could make more money at poker than he could working so he quit his job in order to take up the game full time.

When Doyle Brunson first started playing poker professionally things were very different than they are today. He mainly played in back room games around Texas. Of course these games were illegal and they tended to attract some pretty shady characters. Brunson had to start carrying a gun to the games just to protect himself. After playing in these games for a few years Doyle Brunson realized that if he wanted to be a professional poker player he would have to move to Las Vegas which is what he did. Once he got to Vegas he quickly developed a reputation as one of the top players in town.

Although Doyle Brunson was well known in the world of poker before there were any poker tournaments it was the World Series of Poker that made him famous. He won the main event back to back times in the seventies and has a record ten bracelets total. He continues to play in and win major poker tournaments to this day and is widely recognized as the most influential poker player of all time. This is in part because of the huge success that he has had in tournaments and in part because the book that he wrote to teach people how to play the game has become a classic.

The Venetian Poker Room is THE BEST. No Doubt!

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I got word from ppppoker‘s Tim about a post he made about online poker regulations and it’s a must-read for anyone with an interest in the subject…

I’m a sharing person.

1. Poker rules vary with each game in which newcomers should learn No Limit poker rules before joining tournaments or other poker games online. The rules are prepared so that you understand each method or action taking in poker to win the game and to play fair gaming.
2. Hand ranks are often considered in many poker games because they are valuable assets. Hand ranks are important in No Limit games, such as Texas Hold ‘Em, Seven-card stud, Omaha, Omaha HI/Lo and so forth.
3. Most poker games have set rules in which the players with the highest-ranking hand win the round. In some instances, the player with the lowest-rank hand wins the game.
4. During some of the poker games, such as the Pot-Limits and No Limit, the rules apply. Throughout the game betting is essentially understood by most professional poker players who intend to challenge each hand to win the game; they often consider No Limit Poker rules, but they consider terms, blinds, buttons, all-in, buy-ins, position, check raise, calls, bets, and other essentials in poker as well.

I decided whoever wrote this is a douchebag with no brain and I’m inviting him/her for my home poker game.

The fixtures and fittings are brand new. The room is state of the art. MGM have decided invested heavily and it shows.

The cool, young crowd at MGM means that there are many inexperience young players. Many play like they barely have a grip on the rules of poker. This is great if you fancy cleaning up at the lower limits.

The dealers are very friendly and in the most part good. They do however make quite few mistakes and this slows down the play considerably. They may need to go back to poker school or invest in some seasoned pros. Both the dealers and the management at MGM poker room really know how to treat their guests but without the professionalism to back it up it can start to get irritating.

This goes double for the table service. I wouldn’t want to be dying of thirst at a table in the MGM poker room. You could literally wait an hour for service. Once you have ordered it seems to be alright, but those waitresses are pretty elusive.

Essentially the MGM is a fun place to play poker occasionally but I wouldn’t base my professional career in this place.