Stuart Errol Ungar - aka "Stuey The Kid"

Born in New York City and raised on the city's Lower East Side, Stu Ungar became a professional gambler at the ripe old age of fourteen, a year after his father, who was a bookmaker and ran a bar, had died.

An unbelievable gin rummy player, at ten years old Stu won his first gin rummy tournament in a Catskill mountain resort while vacationing with his mom and dad. At age fourteen, he was frequently playing and beating the best players in New York. At 15 he dropped out of school when a well-known bookie staked Stu to the $500 buy-in in a major gin rummy tournament. Stu won the $10,000 1st prize without losing a hand, a record still held in Manhattan's card rooms. A week later, after handing his parents $1000, Stu lost the rest of his winnings betting on horses at the Aqueduct racetrack. It was indeed a sign of things to come.

Ungar relocated to Miami where his weakness for sports & track betting drained him of any achievement. In 1976 he arrived in Las Vegas, penniless. Somehow Ungar found the cash to enter a $50,000 tournament and on the final two hands correctly guessed the losing player's cards. Regrettably, Stu's bravado proved to be another weak career move as other players became afraid of his skills. Thus, Ungar could no longer participate in any games outside tournaments.

He then shifted to blackjack where, one night at Caesars Palace, Ungar won $83,000 but the manager stopped the play. Stu retaliated by properly forecasting the last eighteen cards remaining in the single-deck shoe. That signaled the end of single-deck blackjack tables which were removed from Caesars and subsequently from other casinos. Stu's picture was also posted up in the security rooms of dozens of casinos in which Stu was banned for life.

Ungar's next challenge was to bet anybody $10,000 that he could count down the final two decks in a 6-deck shoe, but there were no takers. Later in January 1977, he met Bob Stupaka, past owner of Vegas World and designer of the Stratosphere Tower. Bob offered Ungar $100,000 to count down the last three decks, half-way through a 6-deck shoe. If Stu lost he would owe Bob $10,000.To the amazement of everyone, especially Bob, Stu did not miss a single call from a total of 156 cards. Bob gave Stu a check for $100,000, thereby marking the start of their lasting friendship. Memories of this astonishing accomplishment still linger on today in Vegas.

In 1980 at age 24, Stu entered his first world poker championship. He won and to silence the critics of his "fluke," he won again the following year. He was hardly finished with pure gambling though and lost $900,000 in a RAZZ game in a single afternoon, $1 million in a craps session, and picked up $5 million from porno magazine king Larry Flint. Ultimately Stu's thirst for action and his drug addiction were seriously affecting his health.

In 1990, at the beginning of day three of the WSOP Championship, Ungar was maintaining a solid lead but when play began he was no where to be found. After looking for him and forcefully entering his hotel room, Ungar was discovered lying on the floor unconscious. Still, he returned to play and finished ninth to win $20,500.

By the 1997 WSOP tournament in Las Vegas, Ungar did not have the cash required to enter the championship event. However, an hour before play an anonymous benefactor provided the $10,000 entry. Four days afterwards the greatest comeback in poker history had taken place and the record of three victories established. In all Ungar won ten major No Limit Hold'em tournaments out of the thirty he entered!

Two months afterwards Ungar was again bankrupt, and a year later, was back with his old pal Bob Stupak who paid Ungar's debts and signed him up for more commissioned card playing. With $2000 of Stupak's cash in his pocket (spending money) Stu checked into a low-priced downtown hotel. Two days later he was discovered dead, leaving behind a 15 year-old daughter.

Toxicology tests confirmed Ungar had consumed a concoction of narcotics and pain-killers including cocaine, methadone and the pain-killer Percodan. No single drug was enough to cause his death. The official cause was "accidental death by coronary atherosclerosis." Ungar's heart condition developed over a period of time and the attack was ultimately a result of his life-style."

Ungar once proclaimed that although he could imagine there being a better poker player than himself, not in the next fifty years would there be a better Gin player.