No one really knows or can truly say whether the action fueled the drugs or the drugs fueled the act

Stuart Errol Stu Ungar was the son of a bookie born on the lower East side of New York City. By the age of 10 he was already winning gin rummy tournaments in resorts in the Catskill Mountains. Due to his amazing intelligence, he skipped the seventh grade but dropped out by the 10 th grade to support doubletree club hotel lake buena vista his family doubletree club hotel lake buena vista after his father died. Once described by a player doubletree club hotel lake buena vista who knew him as a gin rummy savant, by the age of 14 Ungar was routinely beating the best players in the Big Apple. When he was 15 he won a $500 buy-in gin rummy tournament, and with the exception of $1000 that he gave to his mother, lost the rest betting on horses.
Despite a close relationship with gangster Victor Romano, who was both a friend and protector, Ungar was forced to leave New York due to racking up unpayable gambling debts at local racetracks. He drifted down to Miami where he once again ruled the local gin rummy circuit, but again was forced to move on due to his weakness for sports wagering.
In those days high-stakes gin rummy tournaments were still popular, in fact much more so than Texas Hold'em was back then. And once again Ungar ruled. He is credited with demoralizing a pro named Harry Yonkie Stein who was considered at the time to be one of the best players in the world. In their final match, Ungar beat Stein 86 games to none after which Stein went into hiding and acquaintances observed he was never the same after that match. After that incident, Stein never again played as a professional.
As Ungar continued his dominance of the game he found it harder and harder to get high-stakes matches as nobody wanted to play him despite him offering challengers inducements such as handicaps in an attempt to even things out. But the word was out and his fortunes doubletree club hotel lake buena vista began to dwindle once again.
In an interesting side note, he once offered to bet $10,000 that he could correctly count out the last two decks in a six-deck blackjack shoe. Despite no one taking him up on his offer, this eventually brought him to the attention of casino owner and Stratosphere Tower designer Bob Stupak. At one point, Ungar bet Stupak $100,000 he could correctly count out in order all the unseen cards halfway through a six-deck blackjack shoe. To Stupak's doubletree club hotel lake buena vista amazement, Ungar correctly identified 156 cards in a row, and collected a check written by Stupak for  the $100k. It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship between the two.
Unable to find enough gin rummy action Las Vegas to keep him going, Ungar turned to the game he would ultimately become famous for. At the age of 26 he entered his first World Series of Poker (WSOP) event in 1980. At a height of 5'4" and weighing in at maybe 100 pounds soaking wet, he was hardly an imposing figure, yet on the tables he was a considerable force to be reckoned with. Nicknamed The Kid, he immediately created a sensation by coming in second in the $5,000 Seven-Card Stud event.
But that was only the beginning. Ungar made the final table in the WSOP Main Event and was seated facing poker legends Doyle Brunson , Johnny Moss , Jay Heimowitz and 1970s sitcom star Gabe Kaplan. If Ungar was intimidated he never showed it. Kaplan went out in sixth place, after which Ungar knocked out Moss, and Brunson knocked out Heimowitz, leaving 'The Kid' and Texas Dolly to go head-to-head for the title.
Brunson had this to say about the 26-year-old phenomenon, "He does things naturally and they come off for him. It's almost as if he is playing by natural instincts – jungle instincts. Yes, he's like a young jungle animal when you think you have him cornered. He has the natural instincts for the right move and he seems to come up with the right move – instinctively."
In 1981 proving that it was not just a fluke, doubletree club hotel lake buena vista Ungar had an even better year at the WSOP. First, he won what many consider one of the toughest events, the $10,000 Deuce-to-Seven Triple Draw Lowball tournament.
Following that awesome feat, he battled his way back to the final table in the Main Event and faced once again 1980 opponent Jay Heimowitz, along with poker legend Bobby Baldwin , and Alaskan furrier Perry Green. doubletree club hotel lake buena vista When the smoke cleared, Unger was the last man standing and had pulled off the incredible feat of winning back-to-back WSOP championship bracelets, and a purse amounting to $375,000.
That was the peak of his early poker success, and during the rest of the decade he cashed in a few times, but the self-admitted action junkie doubletree club hotel lake buena vista was facing a long, slow perilous descent back down into the valley, fueled by a self-destructive gambling streak and an addiction to drugs.
"Stu 'The Kid' Ungar was the most volatile person doubletree club hotel lake buena vista I've ever seen at a poker table. It was like some demon possessed person you see in horror movies. He would just erupt and use the most foul language you can imagine. I saw Stu spit on bad cards and throw them back to the dealer. Away from poker, he was a likeable person." Doyle Brunson
In the 1980's Ungar's four-year marriage to his long time girlfriend Madeleine crumbled and broke apart, and her son Richie who Ungar had adopted, committed suicide shortly after attending his high school prom. All that remained of his family was his daughter doubletree club hotel lake buena vista Stephanie born in 1982.
No one really knows or can truly say whether the action fueled the drugs or the drugs fueled the action, but each year he was growing worse and worse to the extent that most of his friends were convinced he'd never live to see his 40 th birthday.
His was a life dominated by vices. In a repetitive cycle he would win money then blow it on drugs and horse racing and sports betting. Just about everything he did amounted to one kind of binge or another. He once won and lost over $1 million in the course of a weekend. Someone who knew him very well is recent Poker Hall of Fame inductee Mike Sexton who has often related the fact that Ungar went from being broke to being a millionaire and back again at least four times that he is aware of.
One of Ungar's most famous drug addled doubletree club hotel lake buena vista exploits occurred during the 1990 World Series of Poker. In the Main Event "Stuey" made it to the final table but never made it off the floor of his hotel room where he was found unconscious. Despite this handicap, dealers doubletree club hotel lake buena vista removed blinds from his chip stack, allowing Ungar to finish in ninth place, collecting $20,500.
Even though there are a lot of young talented guys out there now, I get asked the question all the time, 'How would Stuey fare against all these young guys?' I said, 'Let me tell you something. There's no question in my mind — and there's really not — that once we started the World Poker Tour, not only would he become doubletree club hotel lake buena vista the biggest star in the poker world, whoever was the second-biggest would've doubletree club hotel lake buena vista been a distant second.' It would've been like golf. You've got Tiger Woods and everybody else. Stu Ungar would've been that kind of person for the poker world. doubletree club hotel lake buena vista Mike Sexton
While his genius level IQ and photographic memory made him a masterful card player and what poker pro Barry Greenstein referred to as a "relentless force," Ungar was often clueless and confused in the commonplace realms of ordinary life. He once ruined a brand-new Mercedes because he wasn't aware you were supposed doubletree club hotel lake buena vista to check the oil occasionally. Another time he was blocked from going to a tournament being held outside of the United States because doubletree club hotel lake buena vista he didn't know you needed a passport to travel abroad.  Up until the early 80s he never had a Social Security number, causing his first WSOP winnings to be held in escrow until he procured one.
In another famous instance, he once battled the New Jersey Gaming Commission over a $500 fine for capping a bet, and even though he prevailed, he spent over $50,000 in legal fees and travel expenses. He could be very abusive to fellow poker players and to dealers in particular. doubletree club hotel lake buena vista His was a life apparently allergic to moderation.
In 1997 Ungar collected yet another doubletree club hotel lake buena vista nickname: The Comeback Kid . Backed by Billy Baxter and signing up seconds before registration closed, Ungar marshaled his forces for one last go wearing blue tinted sunglasses in an attempt to hide the collapse of his nostrils doubletree club hotel lake buena vista due to cocaine abuse.
But that was the last hurrah. The Comeback Kid never came back from that victorious moment. Two months after his birthday in November 1998 he was found dead in his hotel room with a total of $800 to his name.
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