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 If someone asked you who was the best poker player of all time, the list of answers you want to give with any seriousness is a lovely short one. Johnny Moss won the inaugural World Series of Poker and went directly to claim Main Event title twice more, so he’s definitely a nominee. Doyle Brunson certainly has the best reputation of any living poker player, and his two Main Event titles and ten WSOP bracelets put him within the running needless to say. Johnny Chan was the last back-to-back Main Event winner and in addition holds ten bracelets, making him an opportunity. But when I were to present my very own answer, I’d probably bypass these three and go along with Stu Ungar.
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Stu Ungar was the son of an illiterate underground Ny bookie and was surrounded by gambling from an early age. He quickly showed himself in a position to understanding the bits and bobs of sports betting, and almost as quickly learned that he was pretty much as good as any adult at card games. He began learning to play poker by watching his mother play in games where she would continually lose $100 in a $1-2 game, and by the point he was ten he was correcting her play while sitting behind her. This aptitude for cards turned Ungar right into a full-blown gambler when he reached his early teens. His gambling became the point of interest of his life at fourteen after his father died, leaving him without an expert figure to maintain him in line. Within eight months, Ungar had beaten one of the vital top gin players in The big apple in a five-minute match. He stopped attending highschool altogether, the mob began backing him in big-money games, and within many years nobody in The big apple would sit in a game with probably the most feared gin player around.
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At the age of 21 Stuey headed to Las Vegas, to play in high-stakes gin games that was alleged to make his backers a fortune. Instead, he demolished the most productive gin player in Vegas, Danny Robison, for $100,000 at the first night. Outside of a handful of matches with individuals who desired to tackle the kid, he couldn’t get any longer action once word of his feats got around. He came home, went broke betting thousands each day on sports, and ended up to this point in debt to against the law boss that he skipped town. While at the lam, he discovered tournament gin and crushed the contest so thoroughly that he was banned from playing because he was scaring away the contest. Not long afterward he began playing high-limit poker with Robison and Chip Reese, which ended in no-limit games with Doyle Brunson. Tournament poker was the top of this progression, and Stuey won the second one tournament he ever played – the 1980 World Series of Poker Main Event.
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One Of A TYPE chronicles these events, and the remainder of Ungar’s life after he arrived in Las Vegas, in vivid prose. One of the vital 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 within the work necessary. Dalla and Alson illuminate their prose with sections of Stuey’s thoughts, that is a little bit strange in the beginning but quickly grows on you. Using this method, the authors may be able to ensure that Ungar’s full character is on display. Lesser writers would have focused solely at the darker side of his life, an easy task with a personality like Ungar, but Dalla and Alson make some degree of revealing the affection he had for his family and the characteristic generosity he displayed whenever he wasn’t too wrapped up within the action. Ungar was an enchanting 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.
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“The Kid” forever altered the best 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 best gladiator in poker history.” His cunning and aggression on the table were legendary, he dominated his opponents like no person else, and to this present day he’s the one player to ever win three WSOP Main Event tournaments outright. Much more impressive, the last of those came nearly 20 years after his first two wins. Sadly, the important thing to all of it was that Stuey didn’t care concerning the money – almost every dollar he ever won ended up behind the cage at a sportsbook one day. Was this a huge waste of talent and effort? And not using a doubt, the answer’s “yes.” But, were these qualities the makings of a master poker player, the likes of which the sector may never see again? Once more, there is no other answer but “yes.”
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One Of A TYPE: The upward thrust And Fall Of Stuey “THE CHILD” Ungar, The World’s Greatest Poker Player is offered from Atria Books.
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