Stu "The Kid" Ungar

Stu "The Kid" Ungar was one of the greatest card players, not just poker players of all time. Unfortunately his life away from the tables was not so successful. Ungar burst onto the scene by winning major poker tournaments with virtually no experience playing the game. Unfortunately an addiction to betting on horses and sports would mean that he was constantly broke. He was constantly having to win big at poker to pay off his other gambling debts.

Stu Ungar was born and raised in New York, his first introduction to cards being gin rummy. Amazingly he won a tournament when he was ten years old. At fourteen he won ten thousand dollars in a tournament. He was so dominant that he didn't lose a single hand during the entire tournament. Unfortunately he promptly lost all of his winnings betting on horse racing. He decided to get a fresh start by moving to Miami but he followed the same pattern there, winning big at gin rummy and then losing it all at the track. Eventually he made it to Las Vegas where he won a number of big tournaments. However he was soon at the end of the road as far as gin rummy was concerned; he was so good that nobody would play him.

Since he was having trouble getting games of gin rummy Stu Ungar decided to switch over to black jack. He won a great deal of money at a number of casinos. However he soon found that he could no longer make a living at black jack. It soon became obvious to most casino managers that he was counting cards. The result was that many casinos wouldn't allow him to play. Even those that did switched away from the single deck games to start using multiple decks making it much harder to count cards.

With both gin rummy and black jack off the table Ungar decided to give poker a try. Amazingly in 1980 he won the world championship of poker despite having almost no experience at the game. He then came back the next year and won it again. Unfortunately his gambling problem was getting worse and he was constantly in debt despite his large poker winnings. In addition he was starting to get into drugs. In 1990 he was playing in the World Series of Poker and had a large chip lead but then failed to show up for play. After a search for him he was found unconscious in his hotel room.

In 1998 Stu Ungar was broke but he managed to borrow two thousand dollars that he hoped to use to rebuild his bankroll. He checked into a hotel in Las Vegas where he died a few days later as the result of a drug overdose. It was a sad end for a guy who had been a great card player.