Stu Unger: Poker Player
Tuesday, 16. March 2010
The primary reason for why Stu Ungar changed from gin rummy to poker was that he was a tiny bit too skilled at it. So skilled in fact, that no player could equal him. Even the apparently experts who were supposed to be the greatest at gin were defeated when they faced Stu Ungar. One of these gin rummy professionals was Harry Stein, called, "Yonkie". Harry suffered such a debilitating blow at the hands of mr. ungar that he allegedly quit competing in it professionally and never resurfaced at a gin rummy tournament.
Of course, with a notoriety like that it wasn’t too long before gamblers became weary of playing against mr. ungar. He could find no matches and in his bleakness he began doing something no one had done before. He began offering starting handicaps to likely competitors with the wish that they might compete with him if they believed they had an edge. He at will played from a negative position and one story has it that stu even played with a constant bad egg. During the contest, he received a few words of wisdom that the cheater was at it once more but mr. ungar stated that he was aware of the chicanery and he would still come away with a win, which he did, of course.
The same trend followed Stu Ungar into vegas. He won so frequently that the poker rooms began asking him not to compete on their casinos anymore. The reason was that other poker room visitors would not sit at the table if he were playing.
Stu Ungar is remembered more for his accomplishments in hold’em poker but he always said that he was far more skilled at gin rummy.
He beat Doyle Brunson in the World Series of Poker in Nineteen Eighty to become the youngest world champion. Due to his looks that made him seem far younger than he was, he got the nickname, "The Kid".
Posted in Poker by Natalia