Las Vegas Poker Superstar Stu Ungar

• Author: Ross Everett
• Filed under: Poker
• Date: Aug 11,2009

Stu Ungar didn’t have much going for him in most areas of life. In fact, it could very well be argued that he was downright inept in most areas of existence. He also had a self destructive streak that manifest itself in heavy drug use and other behaviors. Ungar, however, had one great gift–he was a prodigy with a deck of cards. He would become one of the first superstars of poker before it became a fixture on ESPN, but wouldn’t live to enjoy the ‘boom’. Ungar would eventually be done in by his baser elements, and would be found dead in a Las Vegas hotel room in November, 1988.

Ungar’s skills at the poker table were like Mozart’s at the piano. While countless volumes of poker strategy and theory have been written, Ungar’s understanding of the game was downright instinctive. Ungar’s greatest achievement was his three World Series of Poker victories, but he won millions in informal games and profitable card room sessions. The amazing thing about Ungar’s sheer mastery of Texas Hold’em was the fact that it was the third card game he had mastered. Ungar first came to Las Vegas as a gin rummy prodigy; he had beaten all of the good players on the East Coast and moved to the desert mecca in search of new opportunities. He had soon run the table of Nevada’s gin players, and then turned to blackjack out of necessity. He was quickly barred as a card counter at a number of Southern Nevada casinos. Needing a new vocation, he took up poker.

The cruel irony of Ungar’s life, however, was that masterful as he was at the poker table he was equally as inept at life beyond the casino walls. He was addicted to drugs for most of his life, and gambled away millions betting on sports and golf (a game he played despite being horrible at it). After his WSOP win in 1997, he was nearly broke and wasted away from drug use by the time the 1998 tournament rolled around. Vegas casino owner Bob Stupak bankrolled him, but as the games began Ungar cowered in his darkened hotel suite at Binion’s unable to pull himself together enough to play.

There are countless other Ungar stories that evoke the same theme: he once paid cash for a new Mercedes and drove it until it simply fell apart from lack of basic maintenance. He signed his mortgage paperwork at the table in the Dunes poker room and was taken aback that he couldn’t make his down payment in chips.

Ungar’s death came as something of a shock as he’d shown signs of cleaning up his act. Longtime friend Bob Stupak and helped pay off his debts and staked him in the major poker tournaments. Ungar was found dead two days after the two had drawn up a formal contract. Ungar also left behind an ex-wife and a teenage daughter, who still live in Las Vegas. Though the official cause of death was listed as a ‘heart attack’, there were a mixture of drugs found in his system including cocaine and methadone.

While many legendary gamblers have been tough, larger than life individuals with a healthy dose of ‘street smarts’, Ungar was the diametric opposite. He was almost completely helpless away from the poker table. In the card room, he became an almost unbeatable warrior. While his death came years before the ‘poker boom’, his influence as a pioneer of the game is without question.

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