WSOP 1976 – The First Doyle Brunson Victory

The Overview of WSOP 1976 Tournaments

The game started on May 3rd with a No Limit Hold’em tournament for $1,000. The tournament attracted 56 players and became the largest in terms of participants in WSOP history. The winner was Howard Andrew, a series debutant who reached the prizes for the first time and immediately received $28,000.

Event #1 was notable for another fact – David Sklansky, who would later become one of the main authors in the poker world, took third place. For David, this was also his first WSOP prize finish.

The next day, May 4th, the second No Limit Hold’em tournament for $2,500 took place. The tournament attracted 25 players, and the winner received $24,000. The winner was again Howard Andrew, who had a 100% win rate in WSOP tournaments at that point.

In subsequent years, Howard didn’t win any more WSOP tournaments, but he remained in the series’ history as the man who participated in the WSOP Main Event annually from 1976 until his death in 2021. Thus, Howard Andrew played in the WSOP ME 45 times.

Among the finalists of Event #2 was Duane ‘Dewey’ Tomko. He lost in the heads-up and took second place, but an interesting career lay ahead for him – ‘Dewey’ Tomko would take 2nd place in the WSOP ME twice and become the player who won more than anyone else in his poker career. Not bad for a former kindergarten teacher?

Thanks to poker, Tomko paid for his education, and seeing that the game brought him more money than his job, he became a professional player and earned about $5 million.

The third tournament of the series took place on May 5th, 1976. It was a Deuce to 7 Draw tournament for $5,000. 26 players registered for the tournament. Some sources call this tournament the first event with re-buys, but with 26 players and a $5,000 buy-in, the prize pool was $130,000 – exactly the amount distributed among the three finalists.

Third place and $6,300 went to Speedy Myers. Second place and $33,450 went to Aubrey Day, known to us from his victory at the WSOP 1973. The champion of the tournament was Doyle Brunson!

This was Doyle’s first victory in the WSOP series, his first bracelet out of 10, and a solid $90,250 in prize money. The legendary player, who participated in the earliest WSOP tournaments, became a champion for the first time.

On May 6th, there was an Ace to Five Draw tournament for $1,000, and a record number of players was set – 80 players registered for the tournament. The winner was Perry Green, and he received $68,300 in prize money.

On May 7th, a small 7-Card Stud Split tournament for $1,000 was held. The tournament gathered only 17 participants, and Doc Green took $12,750 for first place.

The next day, May 8th, another 7-Card Stud tournament for $500 took place. This event attracted 52 participants, and the winner was the well-known Johnny Moss. For Johnny, this was the sixth WSOP bracelet, putting him ahead of all his competitors at that point.

Contrary to the established tradition of holding a low-cost No Limit Hold’em tournament before the Main Event, the organizers held a 7-Card Stud tournament for $5,000 on May 9th. The tournament had only 11 players, and the winner was Walter Smiley, a true offline poker legend in the USA.

Until 2024, Walter continues to play live poker tournaments in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, preferring WPT series tournaments and regularly making it into the prize zones of various events.

Second place in Event #7 went to Eric Drache. He is known not only as a specialist in 7-Card Stud but also as the manager of poker rooms at the Golden Nugget and Mirage casinos.

Eric was a consultant on poker shows like Poker After Dark and Face the Ace and set up poker scenes in various films. But the main thing we should thank Eric Drache for is that he invented the idea of satellite tournaments for major poker events. Until 1988, Eric Drache would work on developing the World Series of Poker and create familiar things like satellites, table seat reassignments, and ante structures.

WSOP 1976 Main Event

Now we come to the start of the Main Event of 1976. With a $10,000 buy-in and the “Winner Takes it All” rule, only the best players were ready to fight for the championship title. A total of 22 players registered for the tournament, meaning the winner was guaranteed $220,000 in prize money – a new record for the WSOP series.

The final table had 6 participants, but we don’t know the name of the player who took sixth place. Accurate information about the finalists starts from fifth place, taken by Bob Hooks. Fourth place went to WSOP final table regular Crandell Addington, and third was a Vietnam War veteran Tommy Hufnagle.

Doyle Brunson described his game at the table in his autobiography “The Godfather of Poker”:

“With his youth, talent, and flashy style, Hufnagle had earned his nickname of ‘Fast Eddie’ from the movie ‘Hustler’ starring Paul Newman and had already put in an impressive performance. I would have liked his chances if I hadn’t been at the table.”

Unfortunately for Hufnagle, he went all-in with pocket eights and ran into Doyle Brunson’s pocket jacks.

Two players remained at the table: Jesse Alto and Doyle Brunson.

Both players had experience at WSOP ME final tables by that time. Jesse Alto, a car dealer, was a finalist in 1974, and overall he made final table appearances in 1974, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1984, 1985, and 1986. Surprisingly, Alto never won a bracelet despite all these years.

In 1976, Doyle Brunson started the decisive heads-up as the chip leader and gradually squeezed chips from Alto’s stack. In the decisive hand, Alto had A-J, while Brunson was behind with T-2. The dealer opened A-J-T on the flop, and Alto had two pairs. On the turn, the dealer opened a two, giving Brunson two lower pairs, and he went all-in.

According to PokerListings Poker Odds Calculator, Alto had a 90% chance of winning, and his call was completely correct. But this hand went down in history not because the strong hand held up and Alto doubled his stack. On the river, the dealer opened another T, and Doyle Brunson won the 1976 World Series of Poker Main Event.

The Winner – Doyle Brunson

Doyle is one of the key players in poker history. Even before WSOP began in 1970, he was a professional player traveling the country in search of suitable games. He was one of the few professionals of that era who graduated from university.

He was a promising athlete before poker. First, he showed high results in track in college, and then he was on the verge of joining the NBA’s Minneapolis Lakers. Unfortunately for basketball, Doyle suffered a leg injury and turned to poker.

Doyle Brunson’s biography is full of bright facts, but one of them well describes the beginning of his career as a player. After his injury, Doyle completed his education and got a job at Burroughs Corporation, where he was supposed to sell equipment.

After his first day at work, colleagues invited him to play 7-Card Stud, and Doyle won more in one evening than he was supposed to earn in a month. This determined his future career as a professional player.

After extensive travel through casinos with Amarillo Slim and Sailor Roberts, Doyle moved to Las Vegas, where he became a regular in tournaments and a poker legend.

WSOP History

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