Stu is considered by many to the finest No Limit Hold’em Poker player ever.
The three time World Poker Champion was born in New York in 1953 and started playing poker before reaching his teens.
The young bettor began playing gin and at the age of 10 had won his first gin rummy tournament, while on vacation with his mother and father. By the age of fourteen the little poker maestro had become a pro and stopped going to school.
In ‘54 Stu entered the record books by winning 10 grand in a gin tournament without dropping a single hand, a record which still remains in New York today.
The fast speaking superstar has been likened, in poker terms, to athletic superstars like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. Stu had a actual talent for playing poker but in spite of his achievements in Hold’em poker, he preferred wagering gin.
Stu once said that there may a few day be a greater NL Holdem gambler than him but he couldn’t see how anyone could ever be a improved gin player.
In 1980 Stu was put on the global map as one of the best Hold’em Poker gamblers in the planet when he was crowned World Poker Champion for the first time. Amazingly it was the very first time he had entered the tournament.
The right after year he put aside any suggestions that it had been a fluke, by effectively protecting his title. And in ‘97 Stu set the record by winning his third World poker championship.
But this poker legend also struggled with drug abuse and a year after succeeding his 3rd title Stu Ungar died in his hotel room. According to doctors, he had passed away from a heart attack which was caused by his lifestyle.
Stu had began with nothing except his skill and expertise for the casino game which made this poker wonderful a millionaire several times over.