The main reason why Stu Ungar switched from gin to poker was that he was a tiny bit too good at it. So good was he, that no one could stand up to him. Even the commonly called professionals who were meant to be the greatest at gin rummy were blow away when they played with Stu Ungar. One such gin rummy professionals was Harry Stein, called, "Yonkie". Mr. Stein was handed such a humiliating defeat at the hands of stu that he evidently stopped playing it as a pro and never resurfaced at a gin rummy tournament.
Of course, with a image like that it wasn’t too long before players became afraid of competing against Stu Ungar. He could not find any games and in his desperation he began doing something no one had performed before. He began offering starting handicaps to potential competitors in the wish that they may compete with him if they thought they had an advantage. He deliberately began from a negative position and one tale has it that stu even competed against a regular cheater. Amid the game, he get warnings that the cheater was at it once again but Stu Ungar guaranteed that he knew of the fraudulent activity and he would still acquire a win, which of course, he did.
The same trend followed Stu Ungar into vegas. He won so often that the casinos began asking him not to wager on their rooms anymore. The reason was that other poker room clients refused to be seated at the poker table if Stu was playing.
Stu Ungar is recollected better for his abilities in hold’em poker but he himself always said that he was much better at gin rummy.
He defeated Doyle Brunson in the World Series of Poker in 1980 and became the youngest world camp. Due to his features that made him seem far younger than he was, he got the nickname, "The Kid".
