Stu Ungar and the Stratospheric Growth of Poker in the 80s

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Stu Ungar had already worn out his welcome in gin rummy circles by the time he showed up at Binion's Horseshoe in 1980. Casinos had stopped letting him enter tournaments because other players refused to compete. They knew they would lose. So Ungar looked for something else to dominate, and he found Texas Hold'em.

The 1980 World Series of Poker was the first time Ungar had ever played a Hold'em tournament. He told ESPN commentator Gabe Kaplan as much during an interview at the 1997 Main Event Final Table. That a first-timer could walk into the most prestigious poker tournament in the world and leave as champion would have sounded absurd to anyone who did not watch it happen.

A Newcomer's Arrival at the Horseshoe

Ungar faced Doyle Brunson in the final stretch of the 1980 Main Event. The two had outlasted a field of 73 players. Brunson, a two-time champion, later remarked that he had never seen someone improve as the tournament progressed. Ungar took home $365,000 and became the youngest champion in the tournament's history. He looked even younger than his age, which earned him the nickname "The Kid."

Benny Binion did not want Ungar in his casino. Reports indicate Ungar had spat in a dealer's face after losing a large pot. But Benny's son Jack argued that the media attention Ungar attracted outweighed the headaches. Jack won the argument.

The Card Room Pecking Order

Ungar's dominance forced a reckoning among the professional circuit. Players who made their living at the tables had to recalibrate their strategies when he sat down. Bobby Baldwin, Perry Green, and Dewey Tomko all fell to him in high-profile finals during this period. Watching these veterans lose to a young newcomer from the gin rummy world changed how the poker community viewed talent and adaptability.

The pros at Binion's understood that playing poker against Ungar meant accepting a statistical disadvantage. His ability to read opponents and calculate odds in real time outpaced even seasoned competitors like Doyle Brunson, who noted Ungar's rapid improvement mid-tournament.

Back-to-Back Titles

Ungar defended his title in 1981 by defeating Perry Green in heads-up play. The prize money rose to $375,000. He became one of only 4 players in poker history to win consecutive WSOP Main Events. The others were Johnny Moss, Doyle Brunson, and Johnny Chan. That same year, Ungar won the $10,000 Deuce to Seven Draw event, beating 1978 world champion Bobby Baldwin and collecting $95,000.

Two years later, in 1983, Ungar added another bracelet by defeating Dewey Tomko in the $5,000 Seven Card Stud event for $110,000. By mid-decade, he had accumulated 5 WSOP bracelets and a reputation that preceded him into every card room.

The Super Bowl of Poker

The WSOP was not the only high-stakes tournament during this period. Amarillo Slim's Super Bowl of Poker held its position as the second most prestigious poker title through the 1980s. Unlike the WSOP, which drew amateurs seeking their shot at glory, the Super Bowl of Poker "was an affair limited almost exclusively to pros and hard-core amateurs."

Ungar remains the only person to win the Super Bowl of Poker 3 times. His first major poker tournament was at the 1980 SBOP. He won the Main Event in 1984, then took back-to-back victories in 1988 and 1989. Each win added to the tournament's profile and reinforced his status among professionals.

Growth at Binion's Horseshoe

The WSOP expanded steadily through the 1980s. In 1982, 52 participants entered the Main Event. The introduction of satellite tournaments in the early 1980s changed the composition of the field. Players could now win their way into various events rather than buying in directly. By 1987, the entire series drew over 2,100 entrants across all events.

The Main Event specifically grew from 73 players in 1980 to 178 players in 1989. The field surpassed 100 for the first time in 1982, the year after Ungar's second consecutive win.

Television Enters the Picture

CBS began covering the World Series in the late 1970s. The earliest filming dated back to a 1973 special produced by Binion's Horseshoe and narrated by Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder. Coverage remained sporadic through the early 1980s, typically airing as specials rather than regular programming.

ESPN took over broadcasting in the late 1980s. Initial coverage consisted of a single one-hour taped-delay broadcast of the Main Event. Binion's Horseshoe paid $100,000 to defray production costs. A letter from TWI's Barry Frank to Jack Binion outlined an agreement where the casino would stage the tournament while production companies handled everything else.

The Binion family believed from the start that television exposure was necessary to grow the tournament. The Binion's Horseshoe Collection at UNLV Special Collections contains documents showing how the family shaped the WSOP's public image over the years.

The Numbers Behind the Legend

During his career, Ungar won 10 major no-limit Texas Hold'em events out of 30 major tournaments he entered. That percentage remains unsurpassed. His tournament winnings exceeded $3.6 million, and estimates suggest he won around $30 million during his playing years. He died with no assets.

A 2005 New York Times piece called him "the swashbuckling enfant terrible of poker before it blew up into a mainstream obsession in the 1990's." ESPN's 2006 documentary One of a Kind: The Rise and Fall of Stu Ungar won Best Documentary of the Year along with 3 other Emmy Awards, including Best Writing.

Hollywood Takes Notice

Eric Roth, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Forrest Gump, Killers of the Flower Moon, and Dune: Part One, is developing Ungar's story with his son Geoff into a limited television series.

The younger Roth's script "The Way You Remember Me" landed on the 2021 Black List.

Ungar's daughter Stefanie released a statement about the project: "We never felt ready to share until now. When I met Eric and Geoff Roth, we knew we had found the right team to tell my father's story. Eric first met my father in 1979 when he watched him play cards in Las Vegas, and it's that connection that gives this project a personal level."

The 1980s established Ungar as the most dominant tournament player of his era. His records at the WSOP and Super Bowl of Poker during that decade have held up for over 40 years. The poker world he helped build through his play at Binion's Horseshoe would expand far beyond anything the Binion family planned when they first let "The Kid" sit down at their tables.