One of the pleasures/responsibilities of hosting a radio show where gaming authors are interviewed is that I get to read some of the author’s work before the broadcast. When we scheduled Nolan Dalla, media director of Harrah’s World Series of Poker, it was to talk about the WSOP and not about his book, One of a Kind: The Rise and Fall of Stuey “The Kid” Ungar, the World’s Greatest Poker Player.” Still, I vaguely knew Ungar, was familiar with his story, and decided to read Dalla’s book about him.
In the 1970s I played a lot of backgammon at the Cavendish West, near Los Angeles. Stuey would come around periodically and demolish our gin players. There appears to be no debate that he was the best gin player in the world for a couple of decades. I was never tempted to play him in backgammon as he always wanted to play for nosebleed stakes. At the time I was playing for $5 a point — roughly equivalent to $1 video poker in terms of what you can regularly win or lose. Stuey wanted to play for much, much higher stakes, and wasn’t afraid to take on the best players in the world. (Ability-wise I might have cracked the top 200 players at backgammon, if there was such a list, but I was never one of the best at that game.)
Stu Ungar was raised in New York as the son of a bookie. From a very early age, Stuey hung around gamblers and picked up their way of thinking and talking. Later he made friends with members of various mob families, some of whom became life-long friends. These are colorful people he hung out with. For him, it was no big deal.
Stu Ungar could figure out most games in very short order. If he studied a card game for a couple of hours, he’d already be better than most people who had played the game for years. If he studied it more, he’d be one of the best players around.
He couldn’t figure out sports and race handicapping, however. He’d win at the poker or gin tables and dump it all at the sports book. He was an action junkie and had to have bets going at all times.
Stuey also had a serious drug problem. He avoided it for years (he’d seen what addiction had done to his mother and sister), but after he moved to Vegas in the 70s, he started taking cocaine and other drugs regularly — and never stopped. His drug use cost him his family, his reputation, and, eventually, his life.
Ungar won the WSOP main event three times — and it could easily have been four times. In 1990 he was in second place with two days left to go, but fell sick and couldn’t make the rest of the event. His chips were blinded off (i.e. there are mandatory bets called the big blind and the small blind that two players must make every hand — on a rotating basis. If a player in one of the blind positions is absent, the dealer takes chips off of his stack and puts them into the pot. Eventually the player runs out of chips) and Ungar still ended up in ninth place. Had he remained in the game, there’s a decent chance he would have won.
I’ve met a large number of very bright people in the gambling world. And a large number of action junkies. But Stuey was brighter — and he needed more action than anyone else I ever met.
Around the Cavendish West, drug use was very common. Most of the players who used serious drugs back then are now dead. Many of the ones who regularly used marijuana are now couch potatoes. Good friends of mine went down that path and I could easily have joined them. But for me it was about money. I was desperately trying to accumulate a bankroll so that I could move to Las Vegas and successfully gamble “forever.” I judged things like drugs, alcohol, and tobacco to be expensive luxuries — both moneywise and “keeping your edge”-wise.
I enjoyed this book. It reminded me of people I gambled against decades ago who I haven’t thought about in a while. At the Cavendish West, we had our own mobsters. They weren’t anyone you’ve likely heard of, but they were colorful, and dangerous, nonetheless.
Two nights after this article is published, Nolan Dalla is going to be a guest on our Gambling With An Edge radio show, 7-8 p.m., KLAV 1230AM in Las Vegas or “>www.klav1230am.com anywhere. I’m going to ask Nolan to speculate on a hypothetical match.
Phil Ivey is today considered by many to be the best poker player in the world. I’m going to ask Dalla to imagine a heads up match between Phil Ivey and Stu Ungar in his prime. What would the result be? I’m very curious both to who Dalla says would win and also why he thinks that.
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