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Stu "The Kid" Ungar, world poker champion, plays last hand A man whose fame had already become a legend in Las Vegas was found dead in a $50-a-night motel room on November 22nd, 1998. He bet in huge amounts, played fearlessly, and won millions of dollars. When he died, there was nothing left except $800 in cash in his back pocket.
Although only 45 when he died, he had long since achieved the heights of fame as one of the world's greatest players. He was, for example, a three time Binion's World Series of Poker winner in 1980, 1981, and 1997 and two time Amarillo Slim Super Bowl of Poker winner.
In April 1997, he fought back to win the World Series and collected a check for $1.1 million. A month later it was rumored he was broke, having made a series of bad sports and horse bets. Not for the first time, a drugs habit cost much more than money; it cost him everything he had, lived for, and bet for.
His precociousness showed up early. He won his first gin rummy tournament when aged only 10 in 1963, whilst on vacation with his parents at a Catskill Mountain resort. Four years later he was beating the best players in New York. His memory was known to be phenomenal while still at school, from which he dropped out when only 15 - a bad career move.
Stu soon won $10,000 in a big gin rummy tournament without losing a single hand. That record still stands in the card rooms of New York City. His life was by then beginning to show the roller-coaster gambling streaks that characterized his betting. He might win $10,000 in one night but it would disappear the next day at the race track.
In the late 1970s Stu reached Las Vegas, broke and just about beaten. Somehow he found the money to enter a $50,000 tournament. On the last two hands he forecast the losing player's cards - correctly. This bravado was another bad career move as it meant other players feared his skills. As a result, he could no longer find any games outside the tournaments.
It wasn't long before he decided to try his luck at blackjack. He'd cleaned up on poker tables from Nevada to New Jersey and the time was right to move on. One night at Caesars Palace he won $83,000 but the manager stopped the play. Stu retaliated by correctly forecasting the last 18 cards left in the single-deck shoe. That was the beginning of the end for single deck blackjack tables. They were removed from Caesars and later from other casinos, and Stu's picture was posted up in the security rooms of dozens of casinos. Result: Stu was banned for life.
His next feat was to bet any takers $10,000 that he could perform yet another memory miracle: he offered to count down the last two decks in a six-deck shoe! There were no takers. Then in January 1977 a former owner of Vegas World and designer of the Stratosphere Tower stepped into his life. Stu Ungar met Bob Stupak. The new taker offered Stu $100,000 to count down the last three decks, half-way through a six-deck shoe. If Stu lost he'd owe Bob $100,000.
Memories of this amazing feat still linger on today in Las Vegas. To the astonishment of onlookers, and Bob, Stu didn't miss a single call from a total of 156 cards. When Bob handed him a check for $100,000, it marked the beginning of a lasting friendship between them.
The feat was captured in the memorable words of Bob Stupak: "I can tell you how Siegfried and Roy make the tiger disappear, I can tell you how Lance Burton pulls those birds out of thin air, I even know how Copperfield managed the Statue of Liberty, but I can't tell you how the hell Ungar, or any living human being for that matter, can run down a six-deck shoe. It can't be done, but he just done it."
Saddest of all was the revelation after Stu's death that his friend had offered to pay back Stu's debts and set him up again for another crack at some major poker tournaments. They called him "the greatest pot-limit and no-limit Texas hold'em player ever seen."
His was a talent no one else has yet managed to surpass. At only 27, he won his first $1.1 million playing poker at Binion's Horseshoe, and won the same again the following year. In all he won 10 major No limit Hold'em tournaments but it was his comeback in the '97 World Series of Poker that leaves an indelible memory. With only $30,000 left, he staged a valiant comeback to win the $1.1 million prize. The event was filmed and the footage is often played to poker fans in Las Vegas.
Players were sometimes unnnerved to find themselves sitting next to this extraordinary gambler - he would often tell them what cards they were holding! When news of his death got around, a strange event happened in Binion's Horseshoe. There was a minute's silence in the poker room, a deck of cards was torn up, the fragments scattered over the floor. Someone placed a wreath over the Kid's photo on the World Series Wall of Fame. It was an eerie moment. There was the quiet chinking of glasses as drinks went "down the hatch" for Stu. They missed his breezy and brash presence. It was a recognition of his greatness despite his faults. At this game he had no equal.
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