Stu Ungar, Anybody Ever Play With Him

[blackjack777]

He was great as a player, when he wasn't stoned, high or drunk.

[TobDog]

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I played with him last week at a 1-2 NL game at the Taj. He said he usually played the 25-50 NL at the Borgata, but got sick of the game since all the internet players started flooding it. Then he went on a rant about internet players sucking out on him like crazy and and how you can't beat players who never fold. Then we did some lines together and eiffel-towered a black stripper.

True story

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And you only have 1 star?

[Lawman007]

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Doyle Brunson once said (and im probably paraphrasing) that as good as Stu was, if you could beat his top pair you could take his stack.

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Yeah, I remember somebody (it may have been Doyle) saying that one of Stuey's biggest weaknesses was not being able to let go of a hand when he was beat.

[Dementia]

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Poker is one of those games where so much information is being discovered, and shared, and as information is being shared more willingly now, players are getting better, I think there are probably several hundred players on this board, who if they could go back in time, <u>would have been more successful than him</u>, and almost anyone who poasts on this board would be a winning player back in his days.

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No, you can't say that. That's like saying with all the new information out about composing music, that several hundred people can out-perform the Sinatras, the Presleys etc. He was so good at his game that this comparison doesn't even do it justice.

I know, 'online winrates, lots n lots of poker books' - Stuey, when on his best game, could absolutely crush anybody on this forum hands down. He had something different than most players, he had an amazing card sense. More so than any piece of literature could ever illustrate. Even guys like Mike Sexton, who have seen the poker explosion more than anybody including the influx of good young players, has been quoted as saying that to this day he believes Stuey was the greatest poker player of all time.

[gamblegood]

If you want to know what stu ungar was like look at mike matusow there pretty much the same drug abusers,good tourny players,lose a lot a cash games and sports betting and have zero respect for money at the table and away from the table.

[gamblegood]

What he did at the world series in 80 81 and 97 was unreal but when you think about it what jeff madsen did this year is 10 times more impressive when you think of the number of entrants in 80 81 and 97 to the number of today.

[goodsamaritan]

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Poker is one of those games where so much information is being discovered, and shared, and as information is being shared more willingly now, players are getting better, I think there are probably several hundred players on this board, who if they could go back in time, <u>would have been more successful than him</u>, and almost anyone who poasts on this board would be a winning player back in his days.

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No, you can't say that. That's like saying with all the new information out about composing music, that several hundred people can out-perform the Sinatras, the Presleys etc. He was so good at his game that this comparison doesn't even do it justice.

I know, 'online winrates, lots n lots of poker books' - Stuey, when on his best game, could absolutely crush anybody on this forum hands down. He had something different than most players, he had an amazing card sense. More so than any piece of literature could ever illustrate. Even guys like Mike Sexton, who have seen the poker explosion more than anybody including the influx of good young players, has been quoted as saying that to this day he believes Stuey was the greatest poker player of all time.

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Lol, Mike Sexton is a talking head. Many respectable pros who don't care about being PC about a dead guy have stated that Stuey was a donator in cash games. According to Barry G: "Stuey was a hopeless steamer. Over his playing career he may not have been an overall winner in the side games and he often needed to be staked when he played."

No way was Stuey the best of all time or even his time. Rating poker player is not an exact science, but I think there is very good reason to believe that Chip Reese was much much better than Stuey. He has been consistently beating the biggest cash games for almost 30 years.

[FortunaMaximus]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Greenstein come into poker and Vegas while Ungar was well and truly lost in his degeneracy? He's not one to judge the Stuey of the late seventies or early eighties.

And successful players to present day have tried to imitate his precise style (there wasn't one, actually.) to much lower standards of success. As Aaron said earlier in the thread, he was more capable than most of blending the two major elements you need to succeed at gambling against human opponents.

Madsen's achievements at this year's WSOP are worthy of putting him on a very high level of respect. But it'll take a decade, maybe more, before you can gauge a first-year breakout as an idea of how he will perform over his career.

Different players from different eras, that's all. Personally, I have no doubt a healthy Ungar who was better able to control his demons and degeneracy would still be a force to be reckoned with on the circuit, although I don't think it matters. What can be said is that he understood how to play tournament poker at a time when it was a relatively new introduction to the landscape, and while the biggest winners of the time were still adapting to the different variables that go into tournaments.

Attack, attack, attack, and he certainly did that with everything in his life.

Yeah, I'm an Ungar fan, but his actions off the tables are indefensible.

And the guy who compared Matusow to Ungar? Huh. Now that's giving Matusow too much credit.

[Lawman007]

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If you want to know what stu ungar was like look at mike matusow there pretty much the same drug abusers,good tourny players,lose a lot a cash games and sports betting and have zero respect for money at the table and away from the table.

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Give me a break. Matusow isn't fit to carry Stuey's crack pipe.

[blackjack777]

At least Matusow still has his entire nose attached to his face.