Stu Ungar

As you may know, a movie has been made about the life of three-time World Poker Champion Stu Ungar. I'm not surprised. To attract the attention of Hollywood, just have great talent, be a drug addict, and die young. I haven't seen the movie, but I do know something about the title character.

Although I did not know Stu well enough to even call him an acquaintance, we knew who each other was, and had many friends in common. I would like to give you my take of the man, through my eyes, and the many stories I heard from those who knew him well. I am not going to either praise the man to the skies nor lambaste him for his deficiencies. I will simply give you some snapshots and let you arrange whatever collage you like.

I have seen Ungar praised as the greatest poker player who ever lived. While he was a man of immense poker strengths, he did not have the flexibility needed to deserve that title. My admiration runs more toward people who can thrive in both tournament and money arenas. Some examples of all-around poker ability are Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, and Dan Harrington. These people excel at both limit and no-limit play, are outstanding at many poker forms, and can change gears for the occasion. Whoever the top player of all time may be, he should not receive that title simply because of tournament successes. Tournaments are only one way to measure poker skill.

Ungar was a one-dimensional player. If he had more than one gear controlling his speed of play, overdrive was the slow one. Limit play for him was relatively boring. He was far more effective when he could pop his opponent with all of his chips. In an arena where these qualities are needed, like the final table of a world championship, he may well have been the greatest player who ever lived. But this is not the same as claiming he is the best poker player of all time.

Another arena calling for qualities that Stu had is heads-up no-limit play. Back in the early '80s, when Jack Straus hosted the Match-Play World Poker Championship at the Frontier Hotel, a good friend of mine was invited by Stu to sit behind him and watch one of his matches. My friend (an outstanding professional player) told me he had never seen such a poker performance in his life. Ungar applied unrelenting pressure, and read his opponent like a book. He never made a single mistake. Heads-up no-limit play is another area where Stu may have been the best.

I played poker at the same table with Ungar only once in my life. We were at the same World Series of Poker starting table in 1985, I believe. At that time, the starting structure was a $10 ante and $25-$50 blinds, so lots of red ($5) chips were used at the outset. Despite being at a tough table with all seasoned pros, Stuie played his usual style and tried to run over the game. At the session's end, Stu had nearly every red chip on the table, he won so many pots. However, the few he lost were a lot bigger than the ones he won, and by the end, he had dwindled away half of his starting stack of $10,000. Stuie's strategy was not altered to fit this special situation: a relatively small blind and ante structure combined with a tough crew. The man did not have the flexibility of the truly great players.

Stu would gamble on anything, and was restrained only by the current size of his bankroll. He took up golf right after one of his world championship wins in the early '80s. Physical competition was not one of Stuie's long suits. Despite receiving immense handicaps, the spots were not big enough; word is that Ungar dropped all of his World Series prize money in his first week of golf. Here is a funny golf story about Stuie: Besides getting strokes galore, part of Ungar's spot (insisted upon by him) was that he could tee the ball up anywhere he wanted until he reached the green. One time, he hit the ball into the shallow part of a water hazard. His opponent was a bit dismayed when Stuie pulled out a special tee that was about a foot long, waded out into the water, and teed up the ball!

Here is a personal story that is an excellent illustration of what type of person Ungar was: Late one night I was on my way home from a Vegas late-night poker session, and stopped at the 7-Eleven store a few blocks from where I lived at the time. Lo and behold, when I walked in, Stu Ungar was at the counter. The clerk was ringing up a huge number of food items. I said, "Stuie, what on earth are you doing buying all those grocery items at a 7-Eleven store?"

He said, "I stopped here to get something to eat. All I had were $100 bills, and the guy couldn't make change for one, so I had to buy $100 worth of groceries."

I replied, "There is an all-night grocery store half a mile away. They have way cheaper prices. Why didn't you go up there when the guy said he had no change?"

"I was real hungry and didn't want to wait," said Stuie.

Ungar was not real big on self-denial. This character flaw eventually cost him his life.