Stu Ungar
Stu Ungar won over $30 million from poker playing and is considered the greatest pure poker talent ever to play the game.
He won 5 WSOP bracelets and is the only person to even win three times at a WSOP main event. He also won the main event at the defunct Amarillo Slim's Super Bowl of Poker and a total of 10 major no limit Texas holds 'em events.
Gin Player
Ungar can be also called a gin player, but the right name for him is a gin champion. At the age of ten he won his first gin tournament, at the age of four-teen he was one of the best players in New York and at the age of fifth-teen he dropped out of school to play gin full time. Playing full time earned him more then $10,000. In 1976, at the age of twenty-three he moved to Las Vegas.
He considers himself as a better gin player then poker player.
Poker Champ
Ungar was the youngest player of his time to ever win a WSOP main event, and the one to break his record, later on, was Phil Hellmuth. Due to Ungar young age and even younger appearance, he was called "The Kid".
Skills & Mottos
Ungar has a photographic memory (or total recall memory) that helps him to remember every card in a six-deck shoe. In 1977 he won a bet for $100,000 he made with casinos owner and designer Bob Stupak that he could not count down the last three decks in a six-deck shoe.
This ability was not all good for him and there were times it denied him from playing all together. Ungar was frequently barred from playing in casinos altogether due to his remarkable ability.
As for his attitude towards the game, he believes a good player is a winner and if a player loses, he is nothing more then a loser. So it is safe to say winning is everything to him.
For the Ages to Come
Ungar had a movie made about him in 2003, which was called High Roller: The Stu Ungar Story.
He also has been televised when a character named Joey Frost loosely based on him appeared on an episode of the Law & Order:
The Last Tournament
Ungar was a drug addict and his addiction became worse as the years went by. During the 1997 WSOP he wore a pair of round sunglasses to,according to the rumors, hide the fact that his nostrils had collapsed from cocaine use.
Seven months after the 1998 WSOP, Ungar was found dead in a Las Vegas motel room. the autopsy showed traces of drugs in his system, but according to the medical examiner he had died of a heart condition brought on by his years of drug abuse.
