A Freer Game Part II

Stu Ungar

Most players consider Stu Ungar to be the best poker player in history. His legend is considerable: he was born to a loan shark and was playing gin rummy professionally in New York by the age of 12. The first time he played No Limit Texas Hold’em was in 1980 in the WSOP Main Event – he would win the event besting Doyle Brunson heads-up. He won the tournament again the next year. During the 1980s the world’s most prestigious poker tournament was Amarillo Slim’s Super Bowl of Poker, which Ungar won 3 times. He is estimated to have bought into 30 $5,000 or higher buy-in tournaments in his life – he won 10 of them, and he is reportedly the reason why Las Vegas casinos no longer offer the same odds on single deck blackjack. When casino owner Bob Stupak watched Stu play blackjack he challenged the brash young card counter by betting him $100,000 that Stu could not count down (name every card before it comes) the last 3 decks of a 6 deck blackjack shoe – Stu won the bet. His lifetime tournament winnings are around $30,000,000. He tipped cab drivers and dealers alike upwards of $10,000 for ten minutes of work. By 1993, Stu Ungar had consumed so much cocaine that his nose had collapsed.

Stu had always had a problem with binge drinking and drugs, dating back to his early days in gin rummy. But most spectators either couldn’t see past the eternally boyish features he possessed or stood slack-jawed in awe of his preternatural ability with cards. Only a few of his closest friends ever tried to get “The Kid” into treatment. Mike Sexton who was as close with Stu as any one, tried on a number of occasions to get him into rehab. Stu always declined saying that rehab was only a way to get more drugs.
In 1990, Stu found himself once again as the chip leader going into day 3 of the WSOP Main Event. But a midnight cocaine overdose left him unconscious on his hotel floor and he would not show up to play the next day. However, Stu had possessed such a commanding chip lead that even though he never played and was eliminated through forced blinds and antes, he still finished in 9th place.

By 1997, Stu had lost everything. He was broke, he was separated from his daughter and then ex-wife and his collapsed nose had left him with a jack-o-lantern countenance. Ashamed, he would stay in hotels for months on end.

In the summer of 1997, friend and fellow poker pro, Billy Baxter found Ungar stalking the halls of Binion’s Horseshoe casino, campaigning for someone to stake him the $10,000 buy in for the Main Event. Bill would stake Stu with the $10,000 buy-in to the 1997 WSOP Main Event in exchange for half of whatever Stu won. He was the last person added to the tournament that year, buying in minutes before the tournament began.

It would be for his daughter Stefanie that Stu donned a pair of John Lennon sunglasses, wore them halfway down his face and entered the 1997 WSOP Main Event. He had not won a WSOP event in 14 years and it had been 16 since his last Main Event victory.

Halfway through the first day, Mike Sexton found Stu asleep at a table with the game passing him by. Sexton awoke his friend, and along with Baxter took him aside and gave him an impassioned tongue-lashing. While what was said in that famous castigation has never been revealed, but from that point on Stu would keep a picture of his daughter in his hand.

All of a sudden, it was as if no time had passed between the 1997 and 1981 Main Events. Stu came back to the table as his old self, confident and ferocious. He stormed the field and 3 days later, when the final deuce hit the river, Stu had done it – he had won the 1997 WSOP Main Event. He immediately took out his picture of Stefanie and showed it to the camera so the world could once again see his daughter.

Stu would skip the 1998 WSOP, explaining that he was too tired from the previous week’s binge. A few months later, Stu Ungar, the only man to win the WSOP Main Event outright three times, would be found dead in his hotel room, face down with $800 in his pocket. He was 45 years old.

Chris Young

Chris Young has never won a WSOP bracelet. He has never won a WPT title. He is not a millionaire and he has never made a $5,000 bet in his life. Chris Young has a day job.

Chris Young used to be an amateur online player based out of Indiana, USA. He is afflicted with a number of physical maladies not the least of which are spinal muscular dystrophy and dwarfism and is now confined to a wheelchair. Before you read the remainder of this article, please follow this youtube link to see what Chris has to say. www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdUIGCkf66k

I hate internet poker. I know that it is often rigged even at the highest levels (Absolute Poker and 2007 WCOOP.) The game is way too fast and most importantly, it is robbed of that quintessential human element of sitting at a table with other people. It is at best non-alcoholic poker and at worst a scam. I am far from a fan of internet poker.

But online gaming must be legalized in the United States of America. There are few things in this world that are pure arenas of the human mind – poker is one of them. In a poker game, you are as free in your actions as your imagination will allow. If we do not first seek to extend the freedom inherent in our thought into the physical earth then we will have squandered that most sacred of all gifts – the human mind. Technology has birthed immaculate possibility through the internet, a place where people like Chris can find the same freedom that Hal found, that Dutch found and that for brief respites, Stu found. Poker was invented in America, it is our game. We cannot abide the disintegration of decent people’s chance at freedom.