Stu Ungar: The Controversial Genius Who Had No Competition in the Poker World (Part 4)

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The Comeback Kid

 

The year was 1997 and thanks to Stu's good friend Billy Baxter, something was accomplished that will probably never happen again. Billy decided to loan Stu $10,000 to enter the WSOP Main Event, which he registered him for at the last possible moment. Stu's physical and mental state had been severely damaged by years of drug use, but his friends Billy and Mike Sexton believed his mind was still sound and ready to win.

Halfway through the first day of the Main Event, Stu fell asleep at the table and confessed to Mike that he didn't think he could make it. But Mike and Billy took Stu aside, talked him down, and he managed to survive the first day of play. After that, Stu was able to bounce back, and with a picture of his daughter Stephanie, he returned to the table each day full of energy and vigor.

He was back to being the good old Stu that no one could stop. He carried a massive chiplead to the final table, and he easily parlayed it into his third ever WSOP Main Event championship. Throughout the tournament, Stu wore blue sunglasses, mainly to camouflage the fact that his nasal septum was no longer working due to his cocaine abuse. In his final interview with ESPN, Stu showed a picture of his daughter, to whom he dedicated the win. During the interview, the legendary line, " There's nobody who can beat me at cards. The only one who ever beat me was me."

 

The incredible 44-year-old Stu became the second player in history to win the WSOP Championship three times that year (Johnny Moss did it against 7, 6 and 16 players), this time taking home an even $1 million (half a million of which went to his staker, Billy Baxter). The media made a complete fuss of this win, and since it had been 16 years since Stu's previous title, he earned a new nickname - The Comeback Kid.

 

Last year

 

The half-million-dollar win didn't stay with Stu for long, and within a few months he spent it all, mostly on drugs and sports betting. He made several attempts at rehab, mostly at the request of his daughter, but it never lasted more than a few weeks. As the 1998 WSOP approached, Baxter approached him again with an offer to stack, but Stu turned it down just 10 minutes before the tournament started. He said himself that he had been through a rough drug period, and that showing up in such a state in public would be worse than not showing up at all.

The story of a unique man ended a few months later when he was found dead by a cleaning lady in a cheap Oasis motel on the outskirts of Las Vegas on November 20, 1998. An autopsy showed that years of drug use had caused the fatal heart damage that would prove fatal to Stu at the age of 45. At the time, Stu only had $800 in his bank account, and his friends had yet to chip in for his funeral (Stu is buried at Palm Valley View Memorial Park in Las Vegas). As Doyle Brunson put it "We all felt terrible, but sadly it was no surprise to anyone". As many predicted, Stu's story was over - gone was perhaps the greatest talent to ever play poker. Stu hadn't studied the game, he hadn't dealt spots, he didn't even know what a GTO was. He was simply a genius that I don't think anyone will ever be able to emulate.

 

Stu's legacy

 

Although many would like to experience it, it's safe to assume that no one as talented and unique as Stu Ungar was will ever be born again. During his poker career, Stu won five WSOP bracelets, three of which were from the Main Event. Records show that he entered 30 major tournaments ($5,000 buy-in and up) during his lifetime, winning 10 of them. This represents a success percentage of 33.33%, which is a percentage that will probably never be surpassed in poker today.

In addition to the WSOP, Stu was also successful in the now-defunct Amarillo Slim's Super Bowl of Poker, which he also won three times (1984, 1988, 1989). After his death, Stu was honored in various ways - he was posthumously inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2001, the movie High Roller: The Stu Ungar Story was made about him in 2003, and a book version of his biography, One of a Kind: The Rise and Fall of Stuey "The Kid" Ungar, was published in 2005.

 

 

Stu Ungar: The Controversial Genius Who Had No Competition in the Poker World (Part 3)

Stu Ungar: The Controversial Genius Who Had No Competition in the Poker World (Part 2)

Stu Ungar: The Controversial Genius Who Had No Competition in the Poker World (Part 1)

 

Source - Wikipedia, One of a Kind book, PokerNews, VegasSlotsOnline, YouTube