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 If
someone asked you who was the greatest poker player of all time, the list of
answers you could give with any seriousness is a pretty short one. Johnny Moss
won the inaugural World Series of Poker and went on to claim Main Event title
twice more, so he's definitely a nominee. Doyle Brunson certainly has the
greatest reputation of any living poker player, and his two Main Event titles
and ten WSOP bracelets put him in the running for sure. Johnny Chan was the
last back-to-back Main Event winner and also holds ten bracelets, making him a
possibility. But if I were to give my own answer, I'd probably bypass these
three and go with Stu Ungar.
Stu Ungar was the son of an illiterate
underground New York bookie and was surrounded by gambling from an early age.
He quickly showed himself capable of understanding the ins and outs of sports
betting, and almost as quickly learned that he was as good as any adult at
card games. He began learning to play poker by watching his mother play in
games where she would regularly lose $100 in a $1-2 game, and by the time he
was ten he was correcting her play while sitting behind her. This aptitude for
cards turned Ungar into a full-blown gambler when he reached his early teens.
His gambling became the focus of his life at fourteen after his father died,
leaving him without an authority figure to keep him in line. Within eight
months, Ungar had beaten one of the top gin players in New York in a
five-minute match. He stopped attending high school altogether, the mob began
backing him in big-money games, and within a few years nobody in New York
would sit in a game with the most feared gin player around.
At the age of 21 Stuey headed to Las
Vegas, to play in high-stakes gin games that was supposed to make his backers
a fortune. Instead, he demolished the best gin player in Vegas, Danny Robison,
for $100,000 on the first night. Outside of a handful of matches with people
who wanted to take on the kid, he couldn't get any more action once word of
his feats got around. He came home, went broke betting thousands every day on
sports, and ended up so far in debt to a crime boss that he skipped town.
While on the lam, he discovered tournament gin and crushed the competition so
thoroughly that he was banned from playing because he was scaring away the
competition. Not long afterward he began playing high-limit poker with Robison
and Chip Reese, which led to no-limit games with Doyle Brunson. Tournament
poker was the end of this progression, and Stuey won the second tournament he
ever played - the 1980 World Series of Poker Main Event.
One Of A Kind chronicles these
events, and the rest of Ungar's life after he arrived in Las Vegas, in vivid
prose. One of the most intriguing aspects of the book is Dalla and Alson's use
of direct quotes from Ungar. The book was originally intended to be Ungar's
autobiography, but his death in 1998 made changes in the work necessary. Dalla
and Alson illuminate their prose with sections of Stuey's thoughts, which is a
little strange at first but quickly grows on you. Using this method, the
authors are able to make sure Ungar's full character is on display. Lesser
writers would have focused solely on the darker side of his life, a simple
task with a character like Ungar, but Dalla and Alson make a point of showing
the love he had for his family and the characteristic generosity he displayed
whenever he wasn't too wrapped up in the action. Ungar was a captivating man.
While the authors don't pull any punches, they do serve him well by refusing
to portray him only as a drug addict or degenerate gambler.
"The Kid" forever altered the way
no-limit poker was played when he won his first two Main Event titles, and by
all accounts he was as fearsome a player as ever sat at a poker table - in
any game. As poker professional and WPT announcer Mike Sexton says in his
foreword, "Stuey Ungar was the greatest gladiator in poker history." His
cunning and aggression at the table were legendary, he dominated his opponents
like no one else, and to this day he is the only player to ever win three WSOP
Main Event tournaments outright. Even more impressive, the last of these came
nearly two decades after his first two wins. Sadly, the key to it all was that
Stuey didn't care about the money - almost every dollar he ever won ended up
behind the cage at a sportsbook sooner or later. Was this a tremendous waste
of talent and energy? Without a doubt, the answer is "yes." But, were these
qualities the makings of a master poker player, the likes of which the world
may never see again? Once more, there's no other answer but "yes."
One Of A Kind: The Rise And Fall Of
Stuey "The Kid" Ungar, The World's Greatest Poker Player is available from
Atria Books.
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