The main reason for why Mr. Ungar changed from gin to poker was that he was a tiny bit too good at it. So good in fact, that no player possibly could equal him. Even the apparently experts who were meant to be the greatest at gin rummy were devoured when they played with Stu. One such gin rummy masters was Harry Stein, nicknamed, "Yonkie". Harry Stein was handed such a belittling defeat at the hands of Stu Ungar that he allegedly quit playing it as a pro and never resurfaced at a gin rummy tournament.
Accordingly, with a image like that it wasn’t very long before everyone became weary of competing against stu. He couldn’t find any matches and in his boredom he started doing something no one had done prior. He provided beginning handicaps to likely adversaries in the hope that they might play against him if they believed they had an advantage. He deliberately began from a bad position and one story has it that stu even competed against a constant absconder. Amid the game, he get a few words of wisdom that the bad egg was at it once again but stu assured that he was aware of the chicanery and he would still come away with a win, which of course, he did.
The same problem followed Stu Ungar into sin city. He won so often that the casinos started asking him not to wager on their rooms anymore. The explanation why was that other poker room customers would not be seated at the poker table if he were playing.
Stu Ungar is remembered more for his abilities in holdem poker but he himself always maintained that he was much more skilled at gin rummy.
He beat Doyle Brunson in the World Series of Poker in Nineteen Eighty and became the youngest world champion. Because of his looks that made him appear far younger than he really was, he was nicknamed, "The Kid".
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