Stu Unger is one of the biggest superstars to have immerged from the professional poker world. Besides being a true poker genius and a three time World Series of Poker champion, Stu Unger had a fascinating life story. It was not surprising that after his death Stu was the subject of a biography and a biopic.

Stu Unger lived the life of a rock star including the quick rise to fame, the drugs, the comeback and the unavoidable death at an early age. Here you can read about the life story of the legendary poker player Stu Unger.

The Beginning

Stuart Errol Ungar was born in 1953 to a Jewish family who lived in Manhattan on the Lower East Side. Stus father was a well known bookmaker and his mother was too ill to fight against her sons fascination with gambling. After the death of his father, 13 years old Stu had found a father figure at his neighbor Victor Romano, one of the infamous Genovese family soldiers.

Stu and Romano had at least one thing in common: they both had an incredibly sharp memory, which was mainly used in poker and gin games. By that time, Stu was already an accomplished gin player who had gained vast experience in winning gin tournaments. Stu dropped out of school to become a full time gin rummy player. The Genovese family had benefited from Stus talent. In return, they provided him protection from other gamblers who found themselves offended by his harsh and arrogant playing style.

The Rise

As a professional gin player, Stu had managed to beat all the professional gin poker players around. According to the rumors, Stu caused Harry Yonkie Stein, one of the best players around to stop playing gin completely after beating him in a gin match. Since he was out of proper competition, Stu decided to focus on playing poker professionally. In 1976, he and his girlfriend relocated to Las Vegas where they got married and had a girl, Stephanie.

In 1980, Stu won the World Series of Poker Main Event after beating experienced poker pros such as Doyle Bronson. Stu was the youngest WSOP champion in history and was nicknamed The Kid. Even though Stu won the 1981 WSOP Main Event, he still considered himself more a gin and rummy player than a poker player. After winning his first WSOP championship title, he was quoted saying that the poker world would meet better no limit players than him, but no one will ever be able to play gin rummy better than he does.

At the same time, Stu had tried to use his skill to grab money at the blackjack table. Nevertheless, the casinos were not happy with Stus presence around the blackjack tables and he was constantly barred. In 1982, he was fined by the New Jersey Gaming Commission for cheating, although Stu has not done anything illegal but using his natural skill and phenomenal memory.

The Fall

In 1990, Stu made another appearance to the WSOP. This time, he was heavily into drugs. He was a chip leader for the first three days of the event and then disappeared. He was found lying at his hotel room, unconscious from a drug overdose. However, it did not stop him from finishing ninth and earning enough money for his future cocaine supply.

The Comeback

After seven years of disappearing from the professional poker circle, Stu had returned to the WSOP. In 1997, he was broke, with damaged nostrils from cocaine abuse, addicted to horseracing and sports gambling, but still in shape to beat all the new contestants and gain back his WSOP Championship title. The local media was happy to embrace The Comeback Kid, but his success did not last long.

The Death

Stu Unger did not attend the 1998 World Series of Poker since he could not get the money to pay the entry fee. Seven months after Scotty Nguyen won the 1998 WSOP, Stu Ungar was found dead at his motel room in Las Vegas with 800 pounds in his pocket. Apparently, he died of a heart condition caused by years of drug abuse.

The Biography

Read: One of a Kind: The Rise and Fall of Stuey The Kid Ungar, The Worlds Greatest Poker Player written by Nolan Dalla, Peter Alson, Mike Sexton.

Watch: High Roller: The Stu Ungar Story directed by A. W. Vidmer and starring Michael Imperioli, Christopher Moltisanti of The Sopranos, as Stu Unger

When I first started playing poker it wasn’t the rules that freaked me out; I’m pretty smart, how hard can they be, I figured. Neither was it the strategy; I reckoned that I’d loose a bit, and before I knew it I’d be up to speed and on the ball. No, it was the terminology that got me; I had images of coming to the table and everyone immediately knowing that I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, and feeling like an absolute idiot. For that reason, I want to briefly explain some of the most common terminology used in the game; so that no-one else will have to feel the way I did and won’t be held back by it.

Antes: An ante is used in all table games and is the money that each player must put into the pot in order to buy into the game. The ante is a set amount for the table and this will not change. The money is paid before the first cards are dealt; anyone who does not pay the ante will not be dealt in.

Big blinds and little blinds: Tournaments don’t have antes per se because everyone has already bought into the hand, so to speak, by buying into the tournament. The buy in of a tournament negates the need for an ante as the pot is already set. The big blind and little blind therefore is an alternative to the ante and involves one player on the table paying a sum equal to the minimum bet and another paying a smaller sum equal to half the minimum bet. The big blind is paid by the person in the second seats to the left of the dealer and the little blind is paid by the person sat directly to the left of the dealer. When there are 2 players left the dealer is the little blind.

Board: This refers to the community cards, the cards that all can see and use. There will not be a board in all games, only in Hold’em games such as

Flop: This is the name given to the first three community cards. These cards are turned all at one go.

Turn: This is the fourth community card. The Turn is flipped by itself and is followed by a betting round. This card is sometimes also referred to as the ‘fourth street’.

River: The River is the fifth, and final of the community cards to be flipped over. Once the River is flipped there is only one more betting round.

Showdown: This is the show and tell of the Caribbean Hold’em game. Following the final betting round after the River, all active players must show their hands; the best hand out of the 5 community cards and the 2 personal cards takes the pot.

These are just the very basics of Caribbean Hold’em terminology; you will find that once you are familiar with a few terms you will see them cropping up in other games too. One step at a time and you will be speaking the lingo before you know it.

Most people misunderstand poker. To be completely frank: most people only know poker from the low-stakes games they grew up playing with their family and friends. In these low stakes, home games luck often does play a much bigger role than skill. However, this isn’t real poker.

The money to be gained or lost in a home game tends to mean next to nothing and everyone almost always plays every hand to the end. Add in to that, dealer’s choice & the ever popular “wild cards” and you have a recipe for gambling on your hand, not playing it. In these situations, it’s often the middle hand that wins by catching a lucky card on the river.

Another reason why luck has such a big role in home-style poker games is that many of the skills we use in pro-style games just don’t come into play in a home game. Skills such as patience in determining which hands to play, when to bluff, and how to read your opponent just aren’t used when playing such low-limit against your family. If you are playing too many hands in a tough poker game, you will find yourself short stacked in no time.

Patience

The plain fact is that if you play too many hands in a pro-level poker game, you won’t win. It’s mathematically impossible for you to last for any length of time. But, if you play this many hands in a home game, you may fair better because the sheer size of the pot from the hands you draw out on may offer sufficient pot-odds to draw on that inside straight or whatever the case may be. Especially, if there are “wild cards”.

Bluffing

Another big difference between home poker games and pro-style games is bluffing. Bluffing will actually succeed in a pro game, where everyone will just call you in a low-limit family-style game. It is extremely hard to pull off a bluff in the family oriented game. The main reason for this is the limits are set against you. That 25 cents you’ve raised the pot isn’t going to be enough to scare anyone away, even if it was a check-raise. Anyone would call that, even if they thought they were beaten.

In a pro game, however, bluffing is a sound strategy. If you’ve played very few hands, it’s very possible to steal a pot at the end of a hand by becoming overly agressive at the right time. Your opponents will almost certainly put you on a strong hand, if not the nuts.

Reading your opponent

Another very important element in pro games is the ability to read your opponent. Are they full of crap or are they the real thing? In most home games, there is so much money in the pot (relative to the size of the amount to call) that there is no need to even consider this factor. In pro poker, however, there is enough money involved that a good read can be very valuable.

The simple fact is, if serious poker was a mere game of chance, there would be no such thing as a professionaly poker player and the people you see on the television constantly winning tournaments (i.e. Phil Ivey, Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negraneu, etc) would just have to be the luckiest people in the world. This, obviously, is not the case and many a professional poker can have very successful careers by honing their poker skills.

Seven card stud poker is a very popular form of poker played at both the card table and in online poker rooms. Anywhere poker is being played, either online or off, youll always find a game of stud poker in progress. Stud poker is one of the poker games where players are dealt some of their cards facing up on the poker table, while other cards are dealt face down.

In the game of seven card stud, the dealer deals out seven cards to each player. The dealer deals two cards in the hole, then one card face up. After an opening bet is made, three cards are dealt face up, with a round of bets after each card is dealt out. The final card is dealt in the hole, and final bets are made. The players then create a hand from five of the seven they were dealt.

The following is how a typical game of Seven Card Stud should ideally play out:

Each player places up their ante.

The designated dealer then deals out three cards to each player. Two of these cards are dealt face down on the table, with the third being placed face up on the table. The cards dealt face down are referred to as hole cards, while the card placed face up is called the door card.

Players place their first bets, or they can now fold on their hand.
All remaining players are dealt one card face-up on the poker table.
More bets are placed, any players who wish may now fold.
All remaining players are dealt one card face-up on the table.
Betting round, bets are placed, any players who wish may now fold.
All remaining players are dealt one card face-up on the poker table.
4th betting round, any players who wish may now fold.
All remaining players are dealt a last card face-down on the poker table.
Final round of bets are made.

Its time for the showdown, the players who have remained in the game will now show their hands.
Players are allowed to use any 5 of their 7 cards to make the best hand possible.

Seven card stud poker is played with a standard regulation deck of 52 playing cards. This game does not make use of the Joker card. The maximum number of players allowed in a game of Seven Card Stud Poker should never exceed eight players, to avoid running out of playing cards.