2009 World Series of Poker preview – Stu Ungar profile

Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail

Stu Ungar is an iconic figure in the poker world, unfortunately known for his destructive life-style as much as his brilliance at the poker table. There was no disputing he was one of the best poker players but his demons eventually won the battle and the poker world lost a champion. A compelling story with an unfortunate ending.

There have been several movies made of his story as well as the top Stu Ungar biography One of a King by Nolan Dalla and Peter Alson. People are still drawn to his story over a decade after his death. “Tuscaloosa” Johnny brings us his profile of Stuey “The Kid” Ungar.

World Series of Poker: Stu Ungar
By Tuscaloosa Johnny Kampis

What hasn’t been said about the prodigious talents of the great card shark Stu Ungar?

The skinny kid from Brooklyn was such a good gin player that by the time he was 22 he could scarcely find a game. He took up poker and immediately found success in the biggest games in Las Vegas. At age 26, he entered Binion’s Horseshoe for his first WSOP as the decade of bell bottoms and eight-tracks was ending.

Ungar’s success in poker is highly intertwined with the World Series of Poker, largely because it was one of the few – and certainly the biggest – games in town in the 1980s and early 1990s when Ungar shot to fame on the felt.

He made an immediate splash in the 1980 WSOP, with a second place finish in the $5,000 Seven-Card Stud event.

Ungar, a non-imposing five four inches and maybe a hundred pounds, hung around the leaderboard as the main event field dwindled that year. Doyle Brunson certainly took notice.

“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,” Texas Dolly said of the player the rest were calling “The Kid.”

Ungar put it more succinctly. “At this level you can’t worry about losing. There is a lot of instinct. Sometimes when I make a play I don’t know why I do it.”

The final handful of players included a who’s who list of Brunson, Johnny Moss, Jay Heimowitz and Gabe Kaplan. Finally, after Brunson knocked out Heimowitz, it was the veteran Texan and the new kid from Brooklyn for the title. For the first time in the tournament’s history, Jack Binion loaded cardboard boxes full of $500,000 that would go to the top two finishers and dumped the money onto the table. This playing up to the TV cameras by Binion became an instant hit and has been a tradition ever since.

Heads-up play began with Ungar and Brunson nearly even in chips. Ungar figured it was to his advantage to play fast against his wily opponent. “I wanted to make it a shoot-out. I knew he would outplay me the longer it lasted, for, make not mistake about it, Doyle Brunson is the number one hold’em player in the world today. As far as I was concerned, someone was going to go broke quickly, and by forcing him and carrying the play to him, I hoped it would not be me,” Ungar said.

It didn’t take long – about 15 minutes, in fact. Brunson raised to 10,000 before the flop with A-7 and Ungar called with 5-4. After a flop of A-7-2, Brunson bet a tiny 10,000 and Ungar called, praying for his gutshot to come in. It did when a three fell on the turn and Ungar led out for 30,000. Brunson responded by pushing all-in and Ungar called immediately. A harmless deuce fell on the river and Ungar was the 1980 world champion and $365,000 richer.

He followed that with an even better Series in 1981. He won the $10,000 Deuce-to-Seven Triple Draw Lowball event, often considered one of the toughest pro heavy fields in the WSOP, and felt confident heading into the main event. The first day was not kind to him, however, as his initial stack of 10,000 dropped to 2,000 at one point in the opener. He bounced back on Day 2, at one point climbing from 35,000 to 340,000 during a hot three-hour stretch as the field narrowed toward the final table.

Ungar won a key pot against Heimowitz when his jacks bested the fellow New Yorker’s queens after a flop of K-J-T, and Heimowitz was eliminated when he could not improve by the river.

Then he won the hand that would set him up for back-to-back titles. Ungar raised to 10,000 preflop with K-K and Perry Green called with A-Q. The flop came ace high and Green opened for 60,000. Ungar pondered for awhile before making the call and was rewarded with a king on the turn to double up. He took a slight chip lead into three-handed play, and after Green soon busted Gene Fisher the two Jews were set to play heads-up for the title.

Johnny Moss liked Ungar’s chances for a repeat, saying, “I reckon Stuey’s got it made. He may not look like no Buffalo Bill, but he’s one tough poker player. That boy’s got alligator blood in his veins.”

Ungar took control of the match after a flop of Jd-9c-8c. He got all-in against Green with Ac-Jc against Tc-2c, holding top pair-top kicker and a superior flush draw. Green missed his straight draw and Ungar was ahead 600,000 to 150,000.

“It’s all over,” Jack Strauss said. “The kid’s gonna eat him up like a boarding house pie.”

On the final hand, Ungar held Ah-Qh and called an all-in bet from Green, holding Tc-9d, on a flop of 8h-7d-4h. Again, Green missed his outs and Ungar was the world champion a second time, winning $375,000.

When asked what he was going to do with the money by the television announcer there for the coverage, Ungar replied, “Lose it.”

The rest of the decade was not nearly as successful for “The Kid.” Ungar did win the $5,000 Seven-Card Stud event in 1983, but other than a handful of final tables did not see success again until his last great hurrah in 1997. Supposedly broke at the time, the only reason Ungar got into the main event was because fellow pro Billy Baxter staked him.

Ungar was one of 170 players to survive into Day 2 and was rewarded with a tough table that included former champions Bobby Baldwin, Brunson, Phil Hellmuth and Berry Johnston. Ungar survived this tough field, making tough calls against the aggressive Hellmuth and found himself at the final table yet again – this time under the canopy of the Fremont Street Experience in the first, and only, main event final table played outdoors.

Ungar began this final table with more than 1 million in tournament chips, or more than double the stack possessed by any other player, and he pushed his edge by playing super aggressive poker to put maximum pressure on his opponents. In the end, Ungar found himself heads-up with John Strzemp and holding a 2.5 million to 600,000 chip lead.

On the sixth hand of heads-up play Ungar raised preflop with A-4 and Strzemp called with A-8. After a flop of A-5-3, Strzemp bet 120,000 and Ungar raised to 800,000, enough to put his foe all-in. Strzemp called and waited on his fate. The turn was another three, meaning Ungar could not win with two pair, but the river was a two to give him the straight and his third main event title, making him the only poker player to have ever achieved this feat.

“There’s nobody that can beat me playing cards,” Ungar told Gabe Kaplan, who covered the event for ESPN. “The only one that ever beat me was myself, my bad habits. But when I get to playing like I was, on stroke, this tournament, I really believe that no one can play with me on a daily basis.”

It’s been said that Ungar went from broke to millionaire and back again several times in his life As soon as he earned money at the poker tables he gambled it away in other games, like sports and horse betting, or used it to fund his unfortunate cocaine habit.

As the 1998 WSOP rolled around, Ungar was again broke and Baxter planned to stake him again. Ungar departed the casino just before the main event was to begin, claiming he was too tired to play. Months later he checked into the Oasis Motel in Las Vegas and was found dead two days later, and authorities believed drugs had shut down his weakened heart.

It has been reported that over his career Ungar won 10 of 32 events he played with a buy-in of $5,000 or greater. His WSOP resume is one of the best ever, with the three main event wins, five bracelets, nine final tables and 15 cashes – accomplished in five different poker disciplines and spread over nearly three decades of play. His total WSOP winnings were more than $2 million.

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