Poker Player: Stu Unger
The basic basis for why Mr. Ungar switched from gin rummy to poker was that he was a little too good at it. So skilled was he, that no one was able stand up to him. Even the apparently professionals who were supposed to be the best at gin rummy were demolished when they faced Stu. One such gin professionals was Harry Stein, nicknamed, "Yonkie". Harry suffered such a humiliating beating at the hands of stu that he allegedly quit playing it professionally and never resurfaced at a gin tournament.
Certainly, with a notoriety like that it wasn’t very long before people became shy of competing against Stu Ungar. He could find no games and in his boredom he started doing something no one had done before. He presented beginning handicaps to likely adversaries with the hope that they might play against him if they believed they had an advantage. He at will played from a bad arrangement and one story has it that he even played against a constant bad egg. Mid match, he received advice that the cheater was at it one more time but stu assured that he knew of the cheating and he would still win, which he did, of course.
The same problem followed Stu Ungar into Las Vegas. He won so frequently that the poker rooms started requesting that he not to play on their casinos anymore. The reason for it was that other poker room clientele refused to sit at the table if Stu was playing.
Stu Ungar is recollected more for his accomplishments in hold’em poker but he always maintained that he was considerably more skilled 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 really was, he was nicknamed, "The Kid".