The primary reason for why Mr. Ungar switched from gin to poker was that he was a bit too good at it. So skilled in fact, that no player possibly could equal him. Even the commonly called experts who were meant to be the best at gin rummy were defeated when they competed against Mr. Ungar. One such gin masters was Harry Stein, nicknamed, "Yonkie". Mr. Stein was handed such a belittling blow at the hands of mr. ungar that he apparently stopped playing it professionally and never resurfaced at a gin rummy tournament.
Accordingly, with a reputation like that it wasn’t too long before people became weary of playing against Stu Ungar. He couldn’t find any matches and in his bleakness he began doing something no one had attempted before. Stu offered beginning handicaps to likely competitors with the wish that they might just compete opposed to him if they believed they had an edge. He at will started from a bad arrangement and one story has it that he even played against a consistent absconder. Mid game, he get advice that the cheater was at it again but Stu Ungar guaranteed that he was aware of the cheating and he would still actually win, which of course, he did.
The same trend followed Stu Ungar to vegas. He won so often that the casinos started asking him not to gamble on their casinos anymore. The explanation why was that other casino clients refused to be seated at the poker table if Stu was playing.
Stu Ungar is recalled more for his achievements in holdem poker but he himself always insisted that he was much more accomplished at gin rummy.
He defeated Doyle Brunson in the World Series of Poker in 1980 and became the youngest world champion. Due to his looks that made him appear far younger than he really was, he was nicknamed, "The Kid".
