2019 marks the 50th annual World Series of Poker. The most prestigious poker festival in history has played a pivotal role in creating many of the legends and superstars of the game. To commemorate the occasion, PocketFives editorial staff each ranked the top 50 players in WSOP history in an effort to define and rank the most important, influential, and greatest WSOP players of all time. 

Stu Ungar

Brilliant. Troubled. Arrogant. Genius.

All of these worlds have been used to describe the three-time World Series of Poker Main Event champion Stu Ungar.

Widely regarded as one of the best No Limit Hold’em players of his generation, Ungar’s prodigious understanding of poker and the people that play it made him one of the most feared players of his era and his untimely death in 1998 cut short a legendary career of a player that many call the best to ever play the game.

Ungar arrived in Las Vegas an accomplished gin player, by many accounts the greatest gin player in history. Routinely taking down gin tournaments and besting all comers in the game, Ungar was forced to turn his attention to poker when all of his action in gin dried up.

Ungar’s first result at the series was in 1980, he finished as the runner-up in a 30 person, $5,000 Seven Card Stud tournament for $45,000. It was his first recorded poker cash. One week later, Ungar played in the $10,000 Main Event where he defeated a table full of legends including Johnny Moss, Jay Heimowitz and Doyle Brunson, who finished in second place.

“People talk about Stu’s talent, but few knew how great it really was,” Doyle Brunson said about Ungar.

Before there was Daniel ‘Kid Poker’ Negreanu or Joe ‘The Kid’ Cada, Ungar had earned the nickname ‘The Kid’ both for his fresh-faced appearance at poker tables full of old-school gamblers but also for becoming, at the time time, the youngest player ever to win the WSOP Main Event. A title he would hold until Phil Hellmuth captured it in 1989.

Ungar returned to the series in 1982, taking down his second bracelet in a $10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Lowball event where he defeated Bobby Baldwin heads-up to take down the $95,000 first-place prize.

Just days later he defended his WSOP Main Event title, going back-to-back and winning his third bracelet and $375,000.

Ungar is often credited with being ahead of his time, using a loose hyper-aggressive style that put his opponents on edge. His on-the-felt style of attack allegedly matched his fiery personality, one that was as competitive as they come.

“He was one of the most obnoxious people I’ve ever known,” Brunson has said of Ungar while at the table. “I almost got into two or three fights with him.” However, off the table, Brunson thinks of Ungar as “generous to a fault.”

“In his craft, nobody was quicker, nobody was smarter and nobody was better,” Mike Sexton has said of Stu Ungar.

Ungar is often credited with the quote “Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser.” something he simply didn’t do too much of while playing poker. In 1983, he won his fourth bracelet in three years when he won the $5,000 Seven Card Stud tournament for another $110,000.

Ungar’s World Series of Poker results became sporadic after 1983. There are a number of cashes, a few final tables, but his WSOP prowess waned as his addiction to drugs and his private life sent his life and health into a downward spiral.

In 1990, Ungar entered the WSOP Main Event and once again headed into the final table with the chip lead on Day 3. But he never made it to the final table. He was found in his room suffering from a cocaine overdose. His stack was blinded off and he received over $25,000 for a ninth place finish.

Seven years later, 1997, seventeen years after his first WSOP Main Event win, Ungar made another return to the Main Event. Staked by his good friend and poker legend Billy Baxter, Ungar made yet another run to the final table.

“Stu Ungar won the tournament in 1980 and 1981 and he’s re-emerged,” Gabe Kaplan said announcing the final table was televised on ESPN. “I would equate it to Jack Nicklaus in 1986 at the Masters, they hadn’t heard those footsteps for a while but when they started to hear them on the back 9, everyone started to get a little intimidated.”

The final table played outside on Fremont Street in front of Binion’s Horseshoe. Ungar, decked out in his trademark circular blue shades, ran over the final table en route to his record third Main Event victory, his fifth bracelet overall, and a $1,000,000 payday.

While Johnny Moss is credited as the only other person to win the WSOP Main Event three times, the first time Moss won it, it was awarded to him via a vote. Ungar is the only player to have won three Main Events by playing it out.

Ungar passed away the next year, at age 45 on November 20, 1998. Unable to stay clean, Ungar’s death was thought to be of a heart condition brought about through years of drug abuse.

Ungar’s legacy at the World Series of Poker is that of a three-time champion, and, although troubled, one of the best players to ever enter a tournament.