Stu Ungar is a name that went down in poker history for more than one reason. His extraordinary talents made him one of the best players of his generation, while his personal problems turned his life into a tragic story that ended too early.
Ungar’s poker story started in 1980, when he won his first WSOP Main Event title at the age of 27, taking the poker world by storm. He cemented his legacy the very next year, when he went back-to-back at the Main Event, proving his poker skills were far beyond those of his older peers.
Yet, what really makes his story so incredible is his Main Event victory in 1997, which followed a hiatus from poker, caused in great part by his personal struggles with addiction.
This is the story of Stu Ungar, his incredible comeback to the poker world, and his unfortunate demise, which lives to this day as a cautionary tale for all young people entering the world of gambling and poker.
The Original “Kid Poker” Takes the Poker World by Storm
Stu Ungar was born in 1953 in New York, and he was the son of a loan shark who ran a private gambling club in Manhattan. This meant Stu was exposed to gambling from a very young age, and he got used to playing cards while still in school.
Ungar was an extremely smart kid, and he skipped 7th grade, while simultaneously learning how to play gin rummy at an expert level, beating the older players with little effort.
Over the years, Stu became so good at gin rummy that no one would play him for any serious money, so he decided to move to Las Vegas and try poker, as his talent for card games went far beyond being good at rummy.
It didn’t take too long for Stu to start dominating poker as well, and in 1980, he came second in one of the first tournaments he ever played, before taking down the World Series of Poker Main Event for $365,000.
The very next year, Stu was back at the WSOP, and this time around he won the Main Event again, and added another gold bracelet in a Deuce to Seven Single Draw event.
Stu kept playing and winning at poker over the following decade. He took down millions of dollars at the felt, but much of the proceeds started going to unhealthy habits that would eventually see the young man go down a dark path.
Ungar’s Fight with Drug Addiction
From the outside, Ungar’s life probably seemed extravagant, as he regularly won big poker tournaments, and he was seen as a prodigy by most of his peers.
Yet, on a personal level, Ungar was fighting his internal demons from a very young age. His first encounters with cocaine came as early as 1979, and the drug abuse started taking its toll over the coming years.
Throughout the 1980s, Stu often played poker while high on cocaine, by his own admission, and the drug impacted his marriage so negatively that he eventually got a divorce in 1986, just four years after first getting married.
During the 1990 WSOP Main Event, Ungar was found passed out in his hotel room. His chip stack was left in the tournament, and the dealers blinded him out. The chips he had would last long enough for him to get 9th place in the tournament, and would have probably gotten him way further had he been conscious to use them.
It was after this incident that many of his poker-playing friends urged him to seek help, but Stu believed rehab would not help him, and his path to recovery would be a bumpy one.
The “Comeback Kid” Does It Again
Following the 1990 WSOP, Stu didn’t play poker on a regular basis. While he recorded some results in the years between 1990 and 1997, his talents were mostly wasted away from the tables.
In 1997, his friend and fellow poker player Billy Baxter bought him into the WSOP Main Event, believing Ungar’s raw talent would be enough to overcome the issues he had.
Stu was visibly tired, and his body was weak from the years of drug abuse, but he was still one of the best poker players around. He found the willpower to survive the first day of the event, despite not sleeping for 24 hours before it, and went on to make a deep run in the subsequent days.
By the time it was all said and done, Stu would go on to defeat a stacked field of 312 poker professionals, raking in a cool million dollars in the process.
Stu Ungar was now being called the “Comeback Kid,” and his poker career seemed to be on the uptick once again, as the media and poker fans were all raving about his extraordinary style of play and absolute dominance in the Main Event.
Yet, even the third Main Event title wasn’t enough to fill the emotional gap that Ungar had, and the constant need for action and drug abuse would continue to take their toll over the next year.
Stu’s Unfortunate Final Days
Stu had won a million dollars in the Main Event, and after splitting the money with his backer, he should have had more than enough to get his life back together and keep on building.
Yet, most reports say that Ungar spend his half of the prize money betting on sports and buying cocaine over the next few months. By the time the next WSOP rolled around, he needed staking again, and this time, even that wasn’t enough.
Just before the 1998 WSOP Main Event, Ungar decided to back out and not play in the tournament, despite Billy Baxter once again being willing to back him.
By the wintertime, he had a deal with Bob Stupak to get back to action, with full backing from Stupak himself. The deal could have been incredibly lucrative, and Ungar would have surely been a favorite in any games he was put into.
Ungar took $25,000 from Stupak in November 1998, and just days later, he was found in a cheap room at the Oasis Motel with $800 in his pocket, and his body no longer drawing breath.
The drugs Ungar had been using for years had become too much, and his body could no longer sustain the abuse and simply gave up.
Ungar passed away still a young man, and the extraordinary talent that would have made him one of the biggest legends of the game was extinguished decades ahead of natural order.
Ungar’s Story As a Warning to Young Poker Players Across Generations
Few poker stories encompass all that poker is and can be as well as the tale of Stu Ungar, the young prodigy who had the world at his fingertips, but let it all slip away.
It’s entirely possible that a more talented poker player than Stu Ungar has still not been born. The ease with which he was able to defeat his significantly more experienced opponents was a thing to behold, and his playing style was decades ahead of its time.
Yet, Stu allowed the other things that surround poker, including drugs and gambling, to get the better of him. It was these addictions that ruined his life and eventually led to his early demise.
Young poker players have a lot to learn from Stu, as both live and online poker often expose them to similar dangers and vices that “The Kid” was exposed to in his youth.
This cautionary tale teaches us that talent alone is not enough to establish long-term success in poker, and that discipline may just be the most important skill a young player needs to develop during their formative years.
