One of a Kind: The Rise and Fall of Stuey ',The Kid', Ungar, The World's Greatest Poker Player [Paperback]

Nolan Dalla (Author), Peter Alson (Author), Mike Sexton (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 30, 2006

He was the Jim Morrison of the casino, a legend before he was of legal age. Stuey Ungar, the son of a Jewish bookie on Manhattan's Lower East Side, dropped out of high school to become an underground card-table sensation, eventually taking out every top gin-rummy player on the East Coast. Bankrolled by the Genovese crime family, Stuey would soon travel around the country in search of new opponents and opportunities -- including poker. He would go on to win the World Series of Poker a record three times. And then his luck began to run out.

One of a Kind is the startling tale of a man who won at his game and lost control of his life. Whether tossing away his winnings at the racetrack or on a single roll of the dice, Stuey was notorious for gambling every single dollar in his pocket. Though he had won an estimated $30 million in his lifetime, Stuey had no bank account, not even a home address. He was found dead in a Vegas motel -- with $800 in cash on his person, the only money he had left -- at the age of forty-five.

An intimate, authorized biography -- Nolan Dalla was commissioned by Stuey in 1998 to pen his story, resulting in hundreds of hours of taped interviews and conversations -- One of a Kind illuminates the dark genius of one of poker's most memorable figures.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Begun as an as-told-to by Dalla with Stuey Ungar, this biography tells in painful detail the story of the poker and gin superstar. Ungar is certainly a fascinating subject. He was prodigiously dysfunctional, a manic sports bettor and cocaine addict who won an estimated $30 million during his life, but who, after his death in 1998, needed a collection from his friends to pay for his funeral. Unfortunately, the complexities of Ungar's personality aren't satisfactorily unraveled by the authors. They offer stories from the likes of poker legend Doyle Brunson and Mike Sexton, television's reigning poker guru, of Ungar's fabulous skills as a card player and spectacular need for "action," but few insights into the source of Ungar's self-destructive demons: he died prematurely at age 45 from the ravages of drug abuse. Without any analysis, the repetitious account of years of poker ups and downs, sports gambling losses, manic acts of generosity and descents into drug abuse, as tragic as it is, becomes tedious. Still, without distorting or downplaying Ungar's depredations, this is a heartfelt, respectful and accepting biography.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Reader beware the seductive blue flame. To illuminate the triumphant yet scorchingly hideous forty-five years Stuey Ungar spent among us, Dalla and Alson have produced an acetylene torch of a book. There was no other way to write a story like this. One of a Kind is a lesson in no-limit hold'em as well as a terrifying pleasure."

--James McManus, author of Positively Fifth Street

"I knew Stuey Ungar well and played with him many, many times. He was one of the most remarkable characters to ever sit down at a poker table. Reading One of a Kind not only brought him back to life for me, it vividly re-created a time and place that we'll likely never see again. For anyone interested in understanding and unraveling the legend of poker's most creative thinker and tortured soul, this is the real deal!"

--Doyle Brunson, two-time world poker champion and author of the legendary bestseller Doyle Brunson's SuperSystem: A Course in Power Poker

"If you want an 'education' in the old-time gambling underworld, you can't do better than One of a Kind. Although you'd never want to live it, Ungar's life, as drawn by Dalla and Alson, is riveting, haunting, and compelling. Ungar's legacy of genius, destroyed by indulgence, would seem absurd as fiction; as truth it is a gripping epic tragedy."

--Brian Koppelman and David Levien, screenwriters of Rounders and Runaway Jury

"A well-written and well-researched study of the most naturally gifted and emotionally stunted card genius in the history of poker."

--A. Alvarez, author of The Biggest Game in Town

"Even though Stuey Ungar was perhaps the greatest poker player ever to live, his talent at card playing wasn't close to being his most compelling characteristic. Stuey was a little bit of a gangster, genius, madman, tragic hero, and cardsharp. Add it all up, as Dalla and Alson have done in captivating style, and you get one of the most unusual characters to ever appear on the Vegas scene."

--Andy Bellin, author of Poker Nation

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Atria Books (May 30, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 074347659X
• ISBN-13: 978-0743476591
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (60 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #637,381 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating close-up portrait of a brilliant, damaged card player, June 24, 2005

By 

Michael Craig (Scottsdale, Arizona United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: One of a Kind: The Rise and Fall of Stuey "The Kid" Ungar, The World's Greatest Poker Player (Hardcover)

Stu Ungar's legend transcends poker: he won the world championship three times (the third more than a decade and a half after the second and when he was regarded as a has-been or curiosity) and was supposedly an even BETTER gin player. He had a genius for games that was almost unfathomable. Then, just a year and a half after his greatest triumph, he was dead.

Nolan Dalla and Peter Alson have big-league credentials as researchers and writers of a story about a broken genius of cards. Among other things, Dalla is the media director for the World Series of Poker, can get in touch with ANYONE connected with poker, and interviewed Ungar several times before his death in 1998. Dalla has papered poker publications and web sites with excellent accounts. Alson wrote a highly-acclaimed book about his days as a bookie at Harvard and has written for a writer's wish-list of men's magazines.

Their account is so intimate that it's almost uncomfortable. I say this as a GOOD THING! Ungar was very private, closed even to most people in the poker world, and not a frequent interview subject. This was especially true regarding the two things we'd want to know about: his genius at cards and his self-destruction. Dalla interviewed him before his death and the periodic first-person accounts by Ungar are fascinating and shocking. In addition, the higher echelons of poker (especially where organized crime figures are possibly near, as they were in Ungar's early days and, socially, later on) can be a closed world. Even though men like Mike Sexton and Doyle Brunson are public figures, you would not expect them to be frank about their tragic friend, or about matters potentially at odds with poker's relatively recent, relatively wholesome reputation. But Dalla and Alson got the inside accounts from Stuey's closest friends and even those shadowy mobsters. They also obtained the story from Ungar's ex-wife and daughter; again, invaluable sources you'd expect would be difficult to get.

Stu Ungar's life story is fascinating, no matter how it is told, so the authors are starting with a good hand. From a research perspective, there can be no more authoritative work on the man.

But it is the writing and story telling that REALLY shine. The authors weave together Ungar's first-person accounts with the stories of their many sources in a way that is seamless and compelling. Ungar's essential mystery remains, but the authors allow us to experience the key moments of his bizarre life, always knowing what he's up to and why.

At the risk of mixing metaphors, Ungar lived a roller-coaster life that came to a train-wreck end. The story, ultimately, is a sad one, but it is a thrilling ride for the reader.

36 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Fire that Drives Also Destroys., July 9, 2005

By 

Bernard Chapin "Ora Et Labora!" (CHICAGO! USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: One of a Kind: The Rise and Fall of Stuey "The Kid" Ungar, The World's Greatest Poker Player (Hardcover)

I recall that Jim Mcmanus, in his book on the World Series of Poker, mentioned that Stu Ungar was someone with a life truly in need of exploring, so I was pleased to find out about the existence of this book. I ordered it the minute it was released.

I could not be more pleased with the purchase. Its pages flow like frames in a motion picture. I could not put the biography down. This is a tribute both to the professional writer employed, Peter Alson, and also to the ornate texture of the life it documents.

Stu Ungar was a thoroughly compulsive, brilliant man who was given many gifts that he, with unprecedented impatience, smoked away through the tube of a crack pipe. There was no "could have been a champ" with Stuey though. He won The World Series of Poker three times and was victorious in 381 competitions overall. His memory was photographic and his mind a spinning computer, yet it was his ever-present need for instant gratification that finished him. A lack of concern for money was his greatest No Limit characteristic, but it was also his biggest weakness as he blew millions on sports betting, the ponies, and every other proposition put before him.

Ungar was a man of total contradictions. He loved being a father and cared intensely for his daughter and stepson, yet he disappeared for weeks at a time and could often not be reached when they needed him. Stuey lived for competition but allowed drugs to cause him to skip the 1998 WSOP and sleep through the last two days of the 1990 one. He could be charming and entertaining but had few social graces. This genius had parts which canceled out his whole.

The book succeeds at many levels. We feel tremendous sympathy for the main character, but wonder what more any single person could have done to save him. The finest of the poker players are emotionally non-responsive at the table and possess "alligator blood." However, with Stuey, they brought misery upon themselves in the hopes of diverting him from his inevitable destruction. Doyle Brunson let him move in with his family in El Paso, while Mike Sexton, the same cheeseball who provides color for the World Poker Tour, paid Ungar's hotel bills time and again just so his friend would have a place to live. Chip Reese had written him off, but, finally, as Ungar sat in a jail cell, he pulled out 55 C notes to secure his release.

Stuey Ungar had more talent than practically anyone else on this earth, and being rich should have been a sure thing, but his love of life never equaled his lust for action. He died by his own hand even if the coroner's report said otherwise.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing, September 24, 2005

By 

Ryan "Ryan S" (Livonia, Mi) - See all my reviews

This review is from: One of a Kind: The Rise and Fall of Stuey "The Kid" Ungar, The World's Greatest Poker Player (Hardcover)

One of, if not, the best book i've read. A huge fan of poker and Stu Ungar. I enjoyed every minute of this book, cover to cover. To go insdie the life of Stu Ungar from his worst times to his best times only made me want to learn more and turn more pages but it gave a greater perspective on the poker world back in the 80's. Nolan Dalla and Peter Alson did an amazing job on this book and anyone who is a poker fan and knows about Stu Ungar should definitely pick this book up.