Poker Players

Birthdate: September 8, 1953
Birthplace: New York City
Nickname: The Kid

Stu Ungar is known as the best card player of all time and he is a three-time World Series of Poker Main Event Champion. Stu set up shop in Las Vegas in 1976, and it did not take him long to get banned from the casinos for counting cards in Blackjack. One of the main reasons that casinos switched from one-deck shoes to two-deck shoes in blackjack is because of Stu Ungars photographic memory. Once Stu was banned from the casinos for playing blackjack he turned all of his attention towards playing poker. In 1980, Stu entered the World Series of Poker for his first time, and he won it all. This was a tremendous feat as it was the first time he had ever played No Limit. Also, at the time of his victory he became the youngest World Series champion in the history of the event (24 years old). Stu followed that win up with a repeat the following year. Stu would eventually capture five World Series bracelets and become the only other person in World Series history (along with Johnny Moss) to win three World Series Main Event Championships. In Stu's career he entered a total of 30 high stakes poker tournaments and he won ten of them. He was an extremely aggressive poker player and he seemed to raise every pot that he played in.

Sadly, years of drug abuse and his self destructive lifestyle would eventually catch up with Stu and it would lead him down a dark path in life. Because of his crazy lifestyle he lost many friends, ran up enormous debts, and he would alienate himself from his wife and daughter. In 1997, Stu won his third World Series main event title after not playing for years. He showed the world that he was a card playing genius. A year later his legacy would leave the poker world as he died of heart failure in a Las Vegas motel at the age of 42. He is and always will be considered one of the most stellar poker players of all time. The drugs and gambling got the best of this poker phenom and the poker world will never know just how big of a legend Stu Ungar truly could have become.