Today we’re starting a new series here at wgm8.com called Poker Legends where we look back at some of the players who helped shape the modern game. It might be widespread recognition of a player’s rare ability or it could simply be the influence someone had through a significant success or even some sort of influence either on or off the felt.
However, let’s start with the obvious – Stu Ungar. Although he left this world some 15 years ago – long before the poker boom of the early to mid 2000s – Ungar is widely considered the greatest player to ever sit at a poker table.
To put it bluntly, Ungar was a genius when it came to cards. A gin rummy champion as a kid, he only gravitated to poker after it became apparent that no one was willing to play him at gin rummy any longer. The defining moment came when he demolished Harry Stein who was lauded as the finest gin rummy player of his generation. In a high stakes meeting, Ungar defeated Stein 86 games to nil and thus ended Stein’s gin rummy career.
Soon after, Ungar started trying his hand at poker and again proved to be a natural. In 1980, he entered the WSOP main event and although he was a novice at this particular game, went on to defeat the legendary Doyle Brunson heads-up. The following year he came back and, incredibly, defended his title.
Sadly, it was around about this time that Ungar developed a serious drug addiction, which over the years escalated out of control. A famous story surrounding the 1990 WSOP main event is that when he didn’t turn up to play on the third day of the tournament, a search found him passed out in his hotel room and unable to continue. Still, even though he was continuously blinded down from then on, his huge chip stack ensured he finished ninth.
In 1997, a slightly improved Ungar was provided backing into the WSOP main event by good friend Billy Baxter and after amassing a comfortable chip lead managed to continue all the way through to claim his third main event title. To this day he remains one of only two players – alongside Johnny Moss – to win the event three times.
Drugs, though, proved too great a burden to overcome.
In November 1998, Ungar was found dead in a hotel room of the budget Oasis Hotel – a tragic end for a man who to this day is surely the greatest cards player to have ever graced the earth.
