Poker News

Stu Ungar

Stu Ungar generated a lot of buzz in his 45 years as he traveled the fast lane through poker’s biggest games and tournaments.

Those who either watched or sat at the same tables with him say his no limit skills were unsurpassed.

Veteran poker executive Eric Drache remembers first hearing about Stu Ungar, in the private clubs and games around New York City during the 1970s, coming off as this “brash and arrogant” teenager taking on all comers as a gin rummy player and usually sending them home disappointed.

Ungar won the World Series of Poker’s no limit hold ‘em championship three times, in 1980, the first time he played in poker”s “biggest party” at the Horseshoe. He won it a year later and again in 1997. Remarkably, he duplicated that feat in Amarillo Slim’s Super Bowl of Poker, the only player to ever win the main event in both tournaments three times. Ungar won 10 no limit hold ‘em tournaments with buy-ins of at least $5,000. He earned five World Series of Poker bracelets.

But before he decided to focus his dazzling instincts and skills on poker he had already developed a reputation as “the best gin player in the world.”

Former Vegas World Casino owner Bob Stupak remembers a promotion he ran for a time. He would pay a million dollars to the gambler who could beat him at poker, gin and backgammon, something like that. The catch was Stupak could substitute someone else for himself.

A big moneychallenger from Pittsburgh came to Vegas to test Stupak who called on Ungar to be his designated hitter in a gin game. Ungar was seated at the table as the Pittsburgh challenger walked into the casino.

“He spotted Unger from about 50 feet away, stopped in his tracks and turned to Stupak.”

What the gambler said cannot be repeated here, but the prospect of playing Ungar was enough make him forget his challenge.

Stupak says, “The guy turned around and left.”

Ungar’s aggressive approach to game-playing never changed significantly. Drache says his success made it easy for him to find backers. Putting together a bankroll was not a problem.

“Stu was not afraid of playing for big money even when he scarcely knew the game,” Drache said. Winning was what he did. The money . . . well, it was just a tool.

People who knew Ungar, who were “astounded by his genius,” a phrase that in one way or another had been used repeatedly by people groping for the words to describe his success.

“It was a gift,” Stupak shrugs.

Yes, he was a “genius, he was just the best,” remembers Cyndy Violette, a poker professional now living near Atlantic City.

“Stuey used to let me sit with him and watch him play. It was hard to believe.”

Ungar’s life was a roller coaster, taking him from the heights of the poker world to the lowest of lows.”

The late Jim Albrecht, a respected poker executive who also ran the World Series of Poker for several years once said of Ungar, “I honestly do not believe I have ever seen a more talented no limit player or a more disturbed life, all contained in the same person.”

When he was found dead Nov. 22, 1998 in a cheap Las Vegas motel room at the age of 45, there was instant regret that the gambling world has lost such a talent, but there were also those who whispered with knowing nods that they had seen it coming.

His struggle with drugs was well known. Not that people had failed to reach out and help.

Drache remembers eating dinner with his family at Las Vegas’ Aristocrat restaurant a few days before Ungar’s death. Stupak approached him wanting to know if Drache could get hold of Ungar.

Stupak told Drache he wanted to help Ungar get cleaned up, his bills paid, put him back in action.

Drache called Ungar, giving him a sense of what Stupak had in mind. Stupak agrees now that this is about the way it happened. They met at a lawyer’s office to draw up papers related to the agreement Stupak had in mind. Stupak even hired someone, a guy who was to get a hundred dollars a day. His sole duty: keeping Ungar out of trouble.

With the deal signed, sealed and delivered, Ungar and Stupak left the lawyer’s office and Ungar says, “I’m gonna need some walking around money.”

“So how much walking around money do you need.” Ungar says $50,000 should get the job done.

“That’s a lot of walking around money,” Stupak remembers saying.

The two were talking about a trip to the east coast where Ungar would test the action. What Stupak did was give him $2,500.

Stupak says Ungar told him he had to go, things to do. Had to buy a birthday present for his daughter. That was the last time Stupak saw him. A couple days later, he heard Ungar’s body had been found in the Las Vegas Boulevard hotel room.

An autopsy revealed evidence that Ungar’s bad habits had wrecked his frail body. When he was found Ungar still had $1,200 in his pocket.

What brought him to this particular hotel room?

Stupak’s response is a sad shake of his head. “Does it really matter now.”

“Nobody could beat him except for himself,” two-time World Series winner Johnny Chan wrote on an Internet tribute page.

On the same list of tributes, poker pro Phil Ivey wrote, “Stu Ungar was the Mick Jagger of poker.”

While Ungar had a King Kong kind of presence at the poker table, away from the games he loved some of those who knew him saw evidence that he had trouble with some elements of the real world.

Drache remembers that Ungar could not grasp the concept of a checking account - putting money in the bank so you didn’t have to go to the bank and write a check to spend it.

On another occasion Drache remembers taking Ungar to the old Las Vegas post office on Circus Circus Drive to get a passport. It was needed quickly because of a planned overseas trip for a tournament.

Getting it in a hurry would cost a little extra Unger was told.

Ungar shrugged reached into his pocket, looking over his shoulder, prepared to offer the clerk a $200 tip, as though he was trying to pay a restaurant maitre ‘d for a good seat.

“No, no,” the clerk blanched, “The extra fee for expedited handling is $18.”

Ungar is widely reported to have had an IQ above 180, but no one saw any evidence that he had time for books. He simply worked the equations of high stakes poker or gin in his head in a manner that others found hard to fathom.

His daughter Stephanie Ungar recalls her dad saying, “I just know things. I don’t know how, I just do.”

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