Poker Hall of Famer Doyle Brunson reveals he still has regrets about a missed deal seven years ago for his namesake poker room Doyles Room.

Many would remember Doyles Room for being one of the earliest online poker rooms. The online poker room was established way back in 2004 and licensed in Curaçao. The licensed room was founded and named after 10-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner Brunson, and offered a number of poker card games such as Texas hold ’em, Omaha hold ’em, Badugi, and Seven-card stud. It was also particularly popular for hosting tournaments which saw popular poker pros like Alec Torelli, Cyndy Violette, Hoyt Corkins, Mike Caro and Todd Brunson participate.

While many know the story of Doyles Room’s suspension and how it was later acquired by Americas Cardroom, this is the first time that Brunson opened up about the million-dollar deal that was offered to him for this share of the online poker room.

Brunson Regrets Not Taking Deal

Brunson revealed the information via Twitter in response to the new blog post by author and poker columnist Nolan Dalla, titled 20 Years of Online Poker: Tales of Fast Money, Wicked Beats, and Broken Mice. The new blog post is a series of essays that looks back at the history of online poker and how it has developed from Planet Poker to what it is now today.

In his tweet, Brunson said, “Be sure and include a certain person who turned down a $230,000,000 offer for a card room that had his name on it. In one day, it was worthless. This person who had a 50% ownership has recurring nightmares about it.”

People reacted positively and negatively to Brunson’s revelation, many unable to comprehend why Brunson turned down the deal back then. Some called it greed while others were just completely speechless and turned to emoticons to express their confusion and surprise.

Even Dalla responded to Brunson’s tweet, saying that not everyone can be good at everything. According to Dalla, the trade-off for Brunson being a genius when it comes to making poker decisions is making miscalculations when it comes to business decisions. Using a metaphor to make his point, Dalla said that for every one of Brunson’s brain cells that was superhuman when it comes to playing poker, is an equivalent two brain cells that did not know how to make business decisions.

Brunson Parted Ways After Black Friday

Like many older online poker rooms, Doyles Room’s demise started when 2006’s Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) forced it to close down. Although Doyles Room was able to come back shortly after it folded to the UIGEA, it was again seized by the federal government in 2011 as part of the investigations against Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars, and AbsolutePoker/UB for violation of online gambling laws. This crackdown would later be known to the poker world as Black Friday. After Black Friday, Brunson decided to part ways with Doyles Room.

Like Brunson, other Poker Hall of Famers and poker personalities were hit tremendously by the UIGEA and the effects of Black Friday. In a previous interview with Daniel Negreanu for Card Player’s Poker Stories Podcast, Negreanu shared that he once received a $170-million offer for his Full Contact Poker website. Three days after the offer was made, UIGEA happened—and the deal was off the table.

Tags: Black Friday, Daniel Negreanu, Doyle Brunson, Doyles room, PHoF, uigea

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 21st, 2018 at 11:57 pm and is filed under Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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