Stu Ungar: Professional Poker Player

Mentioning
Stu Ungar's name, when conversing about the greatest
Professional Poker Players, is inevitable, because Stu Ungar is a
three-time World Champion and has five WSOP bracelets
to boot. He has also won 10 major championship events,
of No-Limit Hold'em, where the buy-ins were in excess
of $5,000. Following his lead are T.J. Cloutier and
Johnny Chan.
Amarillo
Slim's Super Bowl of Poker was, for years, the second largest
Poker tournament in the world. During those years, Professional
Poker players attended Slim’s Super Bowl of Poker.
The buy-in to the main event, No-Limit Hold'em championship,
was a hefty $10,000 and Stu Ungar was the only man to win
titles in both the Super Bowl of Poker and the WSOP. Not
just once, but THREE times, each.
On November 22, 1998, Stu Ungar was found lying dead, facedown
on his bed at the Oasis Motel in Las Vegas with $882 on him,
the remnants of a $10,000 advance from Bob Stupak, who earlier
in the month signed a contract with Ungar, offering to pay
off Ungar's debts and finance tournament play in exchange for
future winnings. It is still unknown to this day where the
remainder of the money went. But the book, Aces and Kings,
by Michael Kaplan and Greg Reagan, quotes an anonymous 'longtime
friend' of Ungar's who claims to know what happens. He claims "Stuey
bought a bunch of crack and picked up two hookers who like
to troll near the Oasis. Once they found out how much money
Stuey had on him" - presumably a good chunk of Stupak's $10k
- "he was as good as dead. They pushed him to smoke enough
so that he went into convulsions - which Stuey was prone to
do. The convulsions came, they took the drugs and most of the
money, and left Stuey for dead." No drugs, not even paraphanalia
were found in the room, which is incredibly inconsistent with
Stuey's behavior. Despite winning millions during his poker career,
Ungar died with no assets to his name. Friend and fellow poker
player Bob Stupak took up a collection at Ungar's funeral to
raise funds to pay for the services (Source: Wikipedia).
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