Stu Ungar

Ungar is regarded by many poker analysts and insiders as one of the greatest pure-talent players ever to play the game. But on the topic of his life, Stu’s long term friend Mike Sexton said “In the game of life, Stu Ungar was a loser.”

His biography, One of a Kind: The Rise and Fall of Stuey 'the Kid' Ungar, the World's Greatest Poker Player by Nolan Dalla and Peter Alson was published in 2005. The Emmy-winning ESPN documentary One of a Kind: The Rise and Fall of Stu Ungar was broadcast in 2006. It contained interviews with his wife and daughter and several other people who knew him. It also featured excerpts from tapes he recorded in the last year of his life for an autobiography that never appeared.

A movie based loosely on Ungar's life, High Roller: The Stu Ungar Story (alternate title Stuey), was made in 2003. Ungar was portrayed by Michael Imperioli.

Stu Ungar was inducted posthumously into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2001.

As the 1998 WSOP approached, Baxter again offered to pay his entry fee to the main event. However, ten minutes before play started, Ungar told Baxter he was tired and did not feel like playing. Ungar later said the real reason he chose not to play in the event was due to his drug abuse in the weeks prior to the tournament. He noted that he felt showing up in his current condition would be more embarrassing than not showing up at all.

In the months following the 1998 WSOP, Ungar vanished from the public eye. He lived in and out of various Las Vegas hotels, rarely leaving his room. Ungar was also spotted walking around various Las Vegas poker rooms begging for money. He often said the money was to get him back on the poker tables, but would instead use it to purchase crack, which he now had to use instead of cocaine because his nasal membranes were so damaged he could no longer snort the drug, while crack could be smoked through a pipe. Not long after, many pros, some Ungar's former friends, refused to stake him or give him any money until he cleaned himself up. Ungar was also arrested for possession of crack cocaine during this time.

In October 1998, Bob Stupak made an arrangement to stake Ungar to several tournaments over a period of time.

On November 20, 1998, Ungar checked into room No. 6 at the Oasis Motel, a budget motel located at the end of the Las Vegas Strip. Ungar paid just $48 per night for two nights. On November 22, he was found in the room dead, lying on the floor, fully clothed and with the television off. Doyle Brunson was quoted: “Everybody felt terrible, but it wasn’t a surprise.”

In 1997, a near-broke Ungar convinced the management at the Lady Luck Hotel & Casino to let him play single-deck blackjack. Since Ungar was a known card counter, the casino managers agreed on the condition that his betting would have a high and a low limit (a limited spread), which, they presumed would render useless Ungar's card counting ability. However, in the game of single-deck blackjack, playing strategy (i.e. how to play a hand and deviate from basic strategy) brings more benefits to the player than betting strategy (i.e. how much to bet on the upcoming round). Ungar continued to play blackjack at the Lady Luck for six months. He built his bankroll up to as much as $300,000 but eventually busted out.

In 1997, Ungar was deeply in debt and clearly showed physical damage from his years of addiction. However, he would receive the $10,000 buy-in to the WSOP Main Event from fellow poker pro and friend Billy Baxter moments before the tournament started and was the last person added to the roster, mere seconds before the signup closed.

During the 1997 WSOP, Ungar wore a pair of round, cobalt blue–tinted sunglasses to, according to co-biographer Peter Alson, "hide the fact that his nostrils had collapsed from cocaine abuse."

Ungar spent all of his 1997 WSOP prize money over the course of the next few months, mainly on drugs and sports betting. He attempted to give up drugs several times at the behest of Stefanie but stayed clean for only weeks at a time before relapsing.

Ungar was noted for his ultra-aggressive playing style and well-timed bluffs. Mike Sexton said that Ungar's chips were constantly in motion, and he was described by a fellow professional poker player during the 1997 World Series of Poker as having a clairvoyant ability to see his opponents' hole cards.

During the 1992 World Series of Poker, Ungar faced off against 1990 World Champion Mansour Matloubi in a series of $50,000 buy-in no limit hold'em heads-up freezeout events. On the final hand of the game, Matloubi tried to bluff Ungar all-in for $32,000 on the river with a board of 3-3-7-K-Q. Ungar, who held 10-9, thought for a few seconds and said to Matloubi, "You have 4-5 or 5-6 so I'm gonna call you with this" and flipped over his 10-high to win the pot and bust Matloubi, who in fact held 4-5 offsuit.

Ungar's drug problem escalated to such a point that during the WSOP Main Event in 1990, Ungar was found on the third day of the tournament unconscious on the floor of his hotel room from a drug overdose. However, he had such a chip lead that even when the dealers kept taking his blinds out every orbit, Ungar still made the final table and finished ninth, pocketing $25,050.

Ungar won the main event, defeating Brunson to become the youngest champion in its history (surpassed first by Phil Hellmuth in 1989, then others). Ungar looked even younger than he was, and was dubbed "The Kid."

Ungar and Madeline divorced in 1986. Richie committed suicide in 1989, shortly after his high school prom.

Ungar also won the Main Event at the now-defunct Amarillo Slim's Super Bowl of Poker in 1984, 1988 and 1989, when it was considered by the poker world the world's second most prestigious poker title. As Amarillo Slim himself put it, "Stu musta won a million dollars in my tournaments."

In the 1983 World Series of Poker, Ungar won his fourth bracelet. He defeated professional poker player and multi-WSOP bracelet winner Dewey Tomko in the $5,000 Seven Card Stud event, winning $110,000.

Ungar was fined in 1982 by the New Jersey Gaming Commission for allegedly cheating while playing blackjack in an Atlantic City casino. The casino said that Ungar "capped" a bet (put extra chips on a winning hand after it was over to be paid out more), something he vehemently denied. The fine for this offense was $500; however, paying it would have also forced Ungar to admit that he had cheated. Ungar believed that his memory and card counting ability were natural skills and thus he did not need to cap bets or partake in any form of blackjack cheating. Ungar fought the case in court and won, avoiding the $500 fine. The court battle, though, cost him an estimated $50,000 in legal and travel expenses. In his biography, Ungar claimed he was consequently so exhausted from travel and court proceedings that he was not able to successfully defend his WSOP main event title.

Ungar and Madeline were married in 1982 and had a daughter, Stefanie, that same year. Ungar also legally adopted Madeline's son from her first marriage, Richie, who adored Ungar and took his surname.

Ungar would defend his title successfully at the 1981 WSOP by defeating Perry Green. Ungar was nearly not allowed to defend his title. Several days before the main event, he was banned from Binion's Horseshoe by Benny Binion because he spat in the face of a dealer after losing a sizable pot in a high-stakes game. It was only when Binion's son, Jack, interceded and convinced his father to let Ungar play, citing the media attention that the defending champion would attract.

As the reigning world champion, Ungar won his second bracelet in 1981 in the $10,000 Deuce to Seven Draw event, defeating 1978 world champion Bobby Baldwin in heads-up play. For this victory, Ungar received $95,000.

In 1980, Ungar entered the World Series of Poker (WSOP) looking for more high-stakes action. In an interview for the 1997 Main Event Final Table, Ungar told ESPN TV commentator Gabe Kaplan that the 1980 WSOP was the first time he had ever played a Texas hold'em tournament. (Ungar's first tournament, however, was the 1980 Super Bowl of Poker Main Event, which Kaplan himself won. Stu finished 34th of 41 players.) Poker legend Doyle Brunson remarked that it was the first time he had seen a player improve as the tournament went on.

Growing up with street smart wiseguys such as Romano often presented Ungar with some interesting situations later on in his adult life. Ungar was once at an airport attempting to fly out of the United States to Europe for a poker tournament with several fellow pros. All of Ungar's friends had passports, but he did not. Ungar did not even have a Social Security number until after his 1980 WSOP win and that was only because he was forced to obtain one in order to collect his winnings.

At one point Ungar was being staked by Las Vegas mob enforcer Anthony "The Ant" Spilotro, and showed up at Spilotro's house after having been gone for two days (he was supposed to check in to report his take every day) with a gun in his waistband. Through a slit in the doorway, Spilotro's son Vincent witnessed his father beat Ungar brutally, not for losing money or not having reported, but for the disrespect of bringing a gun into his home. Ungar's relationship with Spilotro was one that helped define Las Vegas of the 1980s.

Ungar's mother had died in 1979. It was also around this time that Ungar began using cocaine. He noted in his autobiography that at first he used it on the advice of fellow poker players because of the drug's ability to keep someone up and energized for a long period of time, something that would come in handy during marathon poker sessions. However, recreational use soon led to addiction.

Ungar eventually had to leave New York due to gambling debts at local race tracks. He later moved to Miami, Florida, to find more action. In 1977, Ungar left Miami for Las Vegas, Nevada, where he reunited with Madeline Wheeler, a former girlfriend who would become his wife in 1982.

At the time Ungar first visited Las Vegas in 1977, gin was still popular in a tournament format, much like heads up poker tournaments. Ungar won or finished high in so many gin tournaments that several casinos asked him to not play in them because many players said they would not enter if they knew Ungar was playing. Ungar later said in his biography that he loved seeing his opponent slowly break down over the course of a match, realizing he could not win and eventually get a look of desperation on his face.

In 1977, Ungar was bet $100,000 by Bob Stupak, an owner and designer of casinos, that he could not count down a six-deck shoe and determine what the final card in the shoe was. Ungar won the bet.

Ido died of a heart attack on July 25, 1967. Following his father's death, and with his mother virtually incapacitated by a stroke, Ungar drifted around the New York gambling scene until age 18, when he was befriended by reputed organized crime figure Victor Romano. Romano was regarded as one of the best card players of his time. He had the ability to recite the spelling and definition of all of the words in the dictionary and apparently shared a penchant and interest for calculating odds while gambling as Ungar did. By many accounts, the two developed a very close relationship, with Romano serving as a mentor and protector.

Ungar won a local gin tournament at age 10. He dropped out of school to play gin rummy in the 1960s full-time to help support his mother and sister after his father died, and began regularly winning tournaments which earned him $10,000 or more. By 1976, he was regarded as one of the best players in New York.

Stuart Errol Ungar (September 8, 1953 – November 22, 1998) was an American professional poker, blackjack, and gin rummy player, widely regarded to have been the greatest Texas hold 'em and gin player of all time.

Ungar was born to Jewish parents Isidore (1907–1967) and Faye Ungar (1916–1979). He was raised on Manhattan's Lower East Side. His father, Isidore ("Ido") Ungar, was a bookmaker and loan shark who ran a bar/social club called Foxes Corner that doubled as a gambling establishment, exposing Stu to gambling at a young age. Despite Ido's attempts to keep his son from gambling after seeing its effects on his regular customers, Stu began playing underground gin rummy and quickly made a name for himself. Ungar was gifted at school and skipped seventh grade, but then dropped out of school in tenth grade.