The details are lost to time and the fury of start-up life, but there was a point 13 or 14 months ago when someone suggested PokerOrg head over to Doyle Brunson’s house and sit in on one of his recording sessions. The was, to be sure, a no-brainer, even if we had no idea what Brunson was recording or why he’d ever allow us to watch him do it. By and by we learned Texas Dolly was recording an audiobook version of his autobiography The Godfather of Poker. The book was a decade old, but who cared if it was 100 years old? Doyle Brunson was telling his entire life story…in his own voice.
And then we didn’t make it over to Doyle’s house before he died on this day, May 14, 2023. Even in a world where it’s dangerous to traffic in regret, missing that opportunity will go down on the list of things I look back on ruefully. Another great Texan, Guy Clark, once wrote, “I have seen the David, I’ve seen Mona Lisa, too. I have heard Doc Watson play Columbus Stockade Blues.”
Guy Clark had it right when he wrote that line about timeless art and experience.. I don’t know if he and Doyle ever crossed paths, but if he had, the late songwriting genius might have written another verse about Doyle’s art: the ability to tell a story like no one else.
Texas Dolly’s final ride
The 2012 print version of The Godfather of Poker (co-authored by respected Texas writer Michael Cochran) runs 384 pages and chronicles the life of Doyle Brunson from childhood all the way through the 2000s-era poker boom. Brunson–simultaneously humble and full of pride–pulls back decades of curtains to reveal poignant, hilarious, harrowing, and regretful tales. Over the years, poker fans probably heard Brunson talk about the people he saw die at the table, his surprise battle and recovery from cancer, and reality that he nearly made it to the NBA. Fewer heard the stories of how he met, courted, and kept the love of his life, Louise. Perhaps even fewer fans heard of Brunson’s longtime struggle to connect with his father or feel the comfort of a father’s pride. The toughest of old rounders might have been a giant in every way, but the grind of poker didn’t turn all of him to leather. His heart was soft until the day he died. And you’ll know that when you listen to Doyle tell those stories
Doyle Brunson in his own voice
In the month before the 2023 WSOP, Poker Royalty Publishing was in the final stages of launching the 12.5-hour-long audio version of The Godfather of Poker. Those who know Poker Royalty would have expected a classy but comfortable launch with the best and most professional promotion. Instead, just as the audiobook was readied for launch, Brunson died. Every story he hadn’t just told into a microphone or shared with friends, went to the grave with him.
The people behind Poker Royalty had been friends with the Brunsons for many years, and despite being in the business of promotion, Brunson’s longtime agents and friends quietly put the audiobook up for sale a little more than a month after Brunson’s death. One could imagine Doyle–a man who appreciated extracting max value–would have forgiven everyone for trying to cash in on his passing, but Poker Royalty just couldn’t bring itself to do that.
Now, however, a year has passed, and it would be a crying shame if all of Brunson and Poker Royalty’s efforts didn’t receive the attention they deserved. Brunson lived enough stories that we could all borrow one, and there would still be a few left for the next generation. It was smart to make sure those stories got down in print more than a decade ago. All of that said, it was essential for those stories to exist forever in a voice poker fans came to know and love. Any pro voiceover artist or actor could have read for the audiobook, and I’d suggest that if that had happened, there wouldn’t have been a raison d’etre for the audiobook to exist. The audio version simply had to be in Doyle’s voice, and we’re forever lucky he and Poker Royalty made that decision.
It feels almost sacrilegious to offer even a hint of criticism about how Doyle tells his life story, but I was asked to write an honest review, so I’d be remiss not to mention the only thing that bothered me about a thing I truly loved. Even the best of talkers and the master storytellers can be less than adept at reading words from a page–even if those words are their own. I spent more than a decade of my life reading my own words aloud professionally, and it’s one of the hardest things to do is sound natural. So, it’s no surprise that there are times when you listen to the audio version of The Godfather of Poker that you’ll wish the production or post-production hadn’t hurried Doyle along in the reading. The man’s voice had a cadence to it that made his storytelling unique. Some of that drawl, timing, and rhythm are lost due to the vagaries of reading and recording. And honestly, apart from perhaps very careful and time-consuming work on the part of a sound editor, the issue was probably unsolvable. It’s also not the end of the world or a reason to not make the audiobook part of your poker library.
Timeless art, or so the greats like Guy Clark will tell us, is timeless because it might have sprung from the ether hundreds of years ago or it might also have just happened yesterday on a stage in New York, on a YouTube stream from Portugal...or in a quiet home studio where a giant man with a giant drawl decided to tell his life story one last time in a voice that makes all the difference in the telling.
Buy the audiobook of Doyle Brunson's The Godfather of Poker.
