Yorky Pud

The $10,000 World Series of Poker Main Event begins this Thursday and we already know that Phil Ivey will not be participating after the Full Tilt Poker scandal but it now looks like one of poker's other living legends, Doyle Brunson, is going to follow in Ivey's footsteps but for completely different reasons.

After surviving another cancer scare back in March, which resulted in him revealing that “winning bracelets and poker tournaments aren't as important to me as they were a few weeks ago,” Brunson's usual jovial Twitter feed has been full of negative comments, but only when he has been Tweeting about poker tournaments he has been taking part in.

In April he got into a conversation with Daniel Negreanu where Negreanu joked that Brunson must have been bored to be needling him after he busted out of a major event. To which Brunson replied, “In your wildest imagination you can't believe how bored and useless I feel. I may never go bust in another tourny, guess why?” but when the Canadian quizzed Brunson about what his tweet meant he avoided the question entirely.

On Saturday 2 July 2011 the 10-time WSOP bracelet winner thanked one of his 383,000 Twitter followers for wishing him good luck in the $50,000 Poker Player's Championship but also said, “You might be watching my last tournament. If I don't play well (up my standards), I may retire from tournament poker.” “Texas Dolly” managed to make it through to Day 2 of the $50,000 event but the writing was on the wall from the start when he was seated on the posisbly one of the toughest tables ever assembled. Keeping him company on Table 365 were Steve Sung, Erick Lindgren, Barry Greenstein, Carlos Mortensen, Huck Seed, Bryn Kenney and Hoi Cheung. Needless to say Brunson busted out during Day 2, well away from the money and shortly afterwards he tweeted to his legion of fans, “No main event for me. Maybe the DOJ will stake me.”

Although Brunson has 10-WSOP bracelets to his name, including back-to-back victories in the 1976-77 Main Events, he has not won a WSOP event since 2005 and it was the previous year that he had his last cash in the Main Event. Personally I think it would be a real shame for him to bow out on a low note, having not cashed in this year's WSOP and having one last shot at Main Event glory would be a fitting way to end his tournament career.