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US Poker Legends
Phil Ivey - The Tiger Woods of Poker
Phil Ivey was born February 1, 1976 in Riverside, California. He started playing poker at age 16 and at 17 he began sneaking into casinos. He had a fake ID, which he was using for about 4 years.
Phil won his first World Series of Poker title at age 23. Two years later he set a record by winning 3 tournament bracelets in 2002. Ivey also has bracelets in Pot Limit Omaha from 2000 and 2005. In addition to his five World Series Bracelets, Ivey has shown great success in the WSOP Main Event. He placed in the top 25 three times from 2002 to 2005, with the fields growing each year. Ivey finished 23rd in 2002, 10th in 2003, and 20th in 2005.
In January 2006, Phil received three incredible honors, being named Player of the Year by All In Magazine, Bluff Magazine, and the UK Gaming Awards.
Phil married his high school sweetheart and they currently live in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Ivey is a regular participant in the $4,000-8,000 mixed cash game at the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas (often referred to as the Big Game). In February 2006, he played heads up Limit Texas Hold ’em versus Texas billionaire Andy Beal. With stakes at $50,000/$100,000, Ivey won over $16 million over the course of three days.
Ivey is part of Team Full Tilt Poker. He can occasionally be found playing online at Full Tilt, playing high stakes limit and no limit hold 'em cash games, as well as PL Omaha Hi games.
Doyle Brunson - Texas Dolly
WSOP champion in 1976 and 1977 Doyle Brunson is widely regarded by many as the best poker player of all time.
Brunson was born in Longworth, Texas on August 10, 1933. Doyle Brunson has been a poker pro most of his life.
Brunson started off by playing on illegal games in Exchange Street, Fort Worth, Texas with a friend named Dwayne Hamilton. Eventually they began traveling around Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, playing in bigger games, and met fellow-professionals Amarillo Slim and Sailor Roberts. The illegal games Brunson played in during this time were usually run by criminals who were often members of organized crime groups, thus rules were not always enforced. Brunson has admitted to having a gun pulled on him several times and noted that he was robbed and beaten as well. However since poker was not a socially accepted career path during this time period, and given the reputation of those running the games he was playing in, he had little legal recourse.
Hamilton moved back to Fort Worth, while the others teamed up and traveled around together, gambling on poker, golf and, in Doyle's words, "just about everything".[1] They pooled their money together for gambling, and after six years they made their first serious trip to Las Vegas and lost all of it, a six-figure amount. They decided to stop playing as partners but remain friends.
Brunson finally settled in Las Vegas.
Other than his poker success, his greatest achievement is probably his book, Super/System, which is widely considered to be one of the most authoritative books on poker. Originally self-published in 1978, Super/System was the book that transformed poker by giving ordinary players an insight into the way that the professionals like Brunson played and won, so much so that Brunson believes that it cost him a lot of money. An updated revision, Super/System 2 was published in 2004. Brunson is also the author of Poker Wisdom of a Champion, originally published as According to Doyle by Lyle Stuart in 1984.
Brunson continues to play in the biggest poker games in the world, playing $4000/$8000 minimum bets and also at the World Series of Poker. He won his ninth gold bracelet in a mixed games event in 2003, and in 2004 he finished 53rd (in a field of 2576) in the No Limit Texas hold 'em Championship event. He won the Legends of Poker World Poker Tour event in 2004 (garnering him a $1.1 million prize), and finished fourth in the WPT's first championship event. July 2005, less than a week after Chan had won his 10th gold bracelet - setting a new record - Brunson tied the record by earning his 10th at the 2005 WSOP. This is now tied with Phil Hellmuth, who earned his 10th bracelet at the WSOP 2006 event.
Brunson's nickname, "Texas Dolly", came from the incorrect reading of his name by Jimmy Snyder, and it stuck. Snyder was supposed to announce Brunson as "Texas Doyle" (since he was from the state of Texas) but incorrectly read Brunson's first name as Dolly when announcing it. Many of Brunson's fellow top pros now simply refer to Brunson as "Dolly".
Brunson has the honor of having two Texas hold ’em hands named after him. One hand, a ten and a two of any suit, bears his name as he won the No Limit Hold 'Em event at the World Series of Poker two years in a row with them (1976 and 1977), in both cases completing a full house. Doyle has expressed his displeasure at being known for what is a weak starting hand in Texas Hold 'em; in fact, in both 1976 and 1977, he was the underdog, requiring Brunson to come from behind both times. Another hand known as a "Doyle Brunson," especially in Texas, is the Ace and Queen of any suit because, as he says in Super/System, he "never plays this hand.
As of 2007, his total live tournament winnings exceeded $4,900,000.
Stu Ungar "The Kid"
Born on September 8, 1953 Stu Ungar was originally a champion gin rummy player. When he was 10 years old in 1963 he won a local tournament, and by 1967 he was regarded as one of the best players in New York. He dropped out of school in 1968 to play gin rummy full time and began winning tournaments earning him $10,000 or more. He later moved to Miami, Florida to find more action, and in 1976 he left for Las Vegas, Nevada.
In 1980 he entered the World Series of Poker (WSOP) looking for more high-stakes action. He won the main event becoming the youngest champion in its history (he would later be superseded by Phil Hellmuth). Ungar looked even younger than he was, and was dubbed "The Kid". He would defend his title successfully the next year.
Ungar was a genius with an eidetic memory, and could easily keep track of every card in a six-deck shoe. His skill and reputation were so good that he was frequently barred from playing in casinos. He was virtually unable to play blackjack in Las Vegas.
After early success Ungar squandered virtually all of his winnings on cocaine and other forms of gambling.
Stu made his final appearance in 1997, 16 years after his first win, after winning and losing millions of dollars Stu was broke and needed the help of a friend to pay his entry to the main event. Fittingly just as he won in is first try he also won in his last, taking home the $1 million first prize. Two months later, after paying off some of his mounting gambling debts and after suffering heavy losses on horse and sports wagers, Stu was broke again.
On November 22, 1998 Ungar was found dead in a Las Vegas motel room with $800 to his name. An autopsy showed traces of drugs in his system, but not enough to have directly caused his death. The medical examiner concluded that he had died of a heart condition brought on by his years of drug abuse.
Ungar is still regarded by many poker insiders as the greatest pure talent ever to play the game; in his life, he is estimated to have won over $30 million at the poker table. Along with Johnny Moss, Ungar is the only three-time WSOP main event champion, winning it in 1980, 1981, and 1997. His win in 1997 is considered particularly remarkable as a comeback after 16 years of drug abuse.
During his career, Ungar won 5 WSOP bracelets and more than $2 million in tournament play. He won ten major no limit Texas hold 'em events
Ungar was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2001. A movie about Ungar, High Roller: The Stu Ungar Story, was made in 2003.
Jhonny Moss (1907-1997)
Jhonny Moss was born in Marshall, Texas in 1907 and grew up in Dallas, where he learned to gamble as a young boy.
As a teenager he was hired by a local saloon to watch over the games and make sure they were played fair. While he was keeping games safe from cheaters, he was also learning to play poker. Two years later he became a rounder, a player that travels the country looking for gambling action.
In 1949 Moss played his famous match with Nick the Greek in a five month long poker marathon set up by Benny Binion, Moss was winning anywhere from $2 million to $4 million. At the end of the marathon, down millions of dollars, Nick the Greek uttered what has become one of the most famous poker quotes ever, "Mr. Moss, I have to let you go."
Moss won the 1970, 1971, and 1974 WSOP main events. For the 1970 WSOP, Moss was actually elected the champion by his peers and only received a silver cup as his prize. He played at every WSOP from 1970 to the 1995 and during his career he won 9 WSOP bracelets
The starting hand Ace-Ten is named the Johnny Moss in his honor.
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