Stu Ungar

Stu Ungar is known by many who know about Poker as the best ever No Limit Hold'em Poker player ever!

Stu Ungar was unlike almost any other poker play you will hear of. At the age of 16 he was known as "The Kid" and was already in casinos playing Gin Rummy and beating most of the players he came up against (later on in his life he even said that although there could be a better poker player, although unlikely, there would never be a better gin player than himself). By the age of 45 though Ungar was dead, and in just those years it is reported he won around $30 Million on cards and still managed to find himself broke after squandering it on drugs, women, cars and sports bets! When he was found dead in a motel room at the age of 45 he had $800 to his name!

A great quote from another of the games biggest and most well known players Amarillo Slim about Stu Ungar was "To Stu, money simply wasn't worth the paper it was written on. That's what made him a great player. He wasn't afraid to shove those chips in the pot. He could bet it all whether he had a hand or not".

In May 1980 Ungar entered the World Series of Poker $10,000 buy-in for the first time and won, this win made him $365,000 and when asked what he was going to do with the winnings his reply was "Gamble it!"
The next year Stu Under defended his World Series of Poker title but 2 days after the event he was broke, this just goes to show the way he lived!
Ungar last won the World Series of Poker in 1997 which was the last year he entered. He had to have a backer put up his buy-in money as he couldn't afford it himself and in exchange he would only take half of any winnings he got! Under won the $1,800,000 jackpot and his 3rd World Series of Poker bracelet and took his half of the money, $900,000. The record of 3 wins still stands!
Unbelievably 2 days after the final Ungar had managed to lose all $900,000 of his winnings by playing poker against a Greek Millionaire during the biggest Limit game ever played, $5,000 & 10,000 limits!

It's a shame about Ungar's lifestyle but this is perhaps what made him what he was like. Who knows what he could have gone on to achieve if he had been able to keep his life in order and to have stopped his drug habit.

Related pages: Poker Players