Stu Ungar, Anybody Ever Play With Him

[gmcarroll33]

From everything I've heard about Stu Ungar, he's made out to be like a child prodigy for cards. Everything I've read says that nobody was ever on his level, but that drugs prevented him from ever dominating his competition like he could have. My question is, has anyone here ever actually sat down and played with Stu? If so, how can you describe his instincts and ability to play cards? How tough was he to play against? Was he as good as he was made out to be, or just good in tourneys and not so good in cash games? I just think he's a fascinating poker legend and just wondered if he really was the once in a lifetime player like he's made out to be, or if he was just a good player.

[benfranklin]

Stuey died in 1998. Most posters here were in grade school at the time. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[timex]

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, would have been more successful than him, and almost anyone who poasts on this board would be a winning player back in his days.

[AaronBrown]

It's awfully hard to tell for sure, unless you're sitting next to somebody with a calculator for years. We can't compare baseball players from one era to another, it's much tougher with poker when no one keeps records and there is so much variance.

I saw him in the late 70s and early 80s. I didn't play much with him because he was part of an organized crime crowd, at least by reputation. By the way, that's another thing that makes it hard to judge how much money he made or lost. Those were days of highly unreliable accounting.

At gin rummy he may have been the best in the world. If not, he was among the best and louder than the others.

At poker, as far as I can tell, he was among the best players but not a superman. He was a rare combination. He had the memory and calculation skills of the nerd players, with the people-reading and manipulation skills of the road gamblers. These days most top players have both, but in those days it was uncommon.

Still, if you kept your cool and played carefully, he was not so fearsome. In fact, he shook a lot of chips loose at the table, and I'm not sure that the careful players didn't walk away with more of them at the end of the session than Stu did. I never won money from him, but I won money during sessions when he was playing. But I didn't play with him much, as I said I tended to avoid that crowd. He was not fun to play with, that's certainly true.

It's hard to argue with his tournament record, but I think there's some luck there. His style was great for building a big chip lead from the weaker players, then pushing for either a first place finish or quick exit. This was before people were sophisticated about tournament strategy. Personally, I suspect that if we could replay those WSOP's lots of times, he'd have the most first place finishes, but other people might have higher average winnings. But it's just a guess.

[samsdmf]

Iv read the book and its pretty clear that he was the best in the world (would easily defeat the world elite from teh past ~20 years in games)
Poker isnt that easy to judge and, as i never played with him I really cant say

[KennyBanya]

Sam,

You may want to read that book again.

The book indicates he was so good at Gin Rummy that it was very difficult for him to get opponents, even when giving odds.

It is also clear he has the best record in $10,000+ buy in tournaments ever.

However, the book also indicates that he may have actually been a long term loser in cash games.

That is pretty far from saying its clear he is the best in the world.

Peace,

KennyBanya

[J_V]

[ QUOTE ]
I think there are probably several hundred players on this board, who if they could go back in time, would have been more successful than him, and almost anyone who poasts on this board would be a winning player back in his days.

[/ QUOTE ]


Lol. Yeah, except we'd have the same problem everyone else did, no information on how to play correctly. So 99.99% of us would suck into mediocreness.

[captZEEbo]

He doesn't sound particularly good imo. I'd probably play with him all day long if he was still around.

[*TT*]

AaronBrown's post should be manditory reading for all Ungar fans, I think he nailed it.

TT [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

[goodsamaritan]

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