Unbelievable Creatures

I – Stu Ungar (1953 – 1998)

The “Kid” was the best poker player ever
such a pass to be forbidden to gamble,
but he lost the games against horse and
dog races, disorganization and cocaine.

Stuart Enroll Ungar was born in New York City in a Jewish family. At age 10
in '63, he won his first tournament. At age 14, he was regularly playing
poker and beating the best players in New York. At 15 he dropped out of
school and won a $10,000 first prize without even losing a hand, a record still held in the card rooms of
New York City. A week later, after giving his parents $1,000, he lost the rest on horse track races. It was
a sign of things to come.

Stu moved to Miami where he did well but his passion for sports and track betting drained him of any
success. In 1976 he reached Las Vegas, broke. Somehow he found money to enter a $50,000
tournament. It wasn't long before he decided to try his luck at blackjack. He cleaned up on poker tables
from Nevada to New Jersey. One night at Caesars Palace he won $83,000 but the manager stopped the
game because Stu correctly forecast the last 18 cards left in deck table. He was expelled from Caesars
and later from other casinos, and his picture was posted up in the security rooms of dozens of casinos.

In 1980, being only 26 and with virtually no experience at No Limit Hold'em, Stu entered the $10,000
buy-in World Series of Poker, the famous WSOP, considered the Poker World Cup. He won it. He returned
in 1982 and repeated his triunph.

Until Stu appear in Vegas, poker was dominated by cowboys. Charismatic, then he became pop star in
the city. He was gallant with women and implacable with adversaries. It had absolute photographic
memory: if he saw the cards being quickly shuffled, he would know later the combination of each person
in the table.

Stu added to his aggressiveness, the coldness to bluff with thousand of dollars and the capacity to
perceive in the face of its adversaries what they were planning, he frightened who played with him. “Its
brain functioned faster 99% than any other person in the table ", said the player Mike Sexon.

His health, however, had two adversaries: long nights with women and cocaine. His pocket was even
worse: he did not stay one day without betting, mainly in dog races (game he adored, but of which did
not understand anything). He impoverished. In 1997, with lent money, he still entered - and to be
successful - for the last time in the WSOP. He spent out in 4 months the prize of 1 million of dollar and,
in 1998, in a filthy inn in Las Vegas, Stu was found died by cardiac attack dirty as a beggar. Out of the 30
million dollar he earned in his career, it remained just US$ 800 in his clothes.

 “The Kid” was the biggest money winner in poker history: over US$ 30 million. He was also the
unique not voted three times world champion (‘80, ’81 and 97’).

 Stu accumulated 16 victories in grand slam championships. The closest competitors have won
only 8 so far.

 He was totally disorganized and never opened a bank account in his life time. He got millionaire
lost everything at least 4 times in his “career” A time, with 3 million dollar in the pocket, had the
light cut due to payment.

 He seemed to be much younger of what he was. Around 35, he needed to take from his pocket a
bunch of 10 thousand dollars and to show to a waiter not to be sent way from a night club. For it
he was nicknamed as “the Kid”.