Casino Mike Sexton on Stu Ungar Counting Cards (great watch)

Really good watch this, only 3mins

Watched a video few years aback, the Stu Ungar story, he murdered wasn't he?

 

No he died as a almost broke junkie at the crack motel the Oasis near the Strat. I say almost because he actually had some money with him. Drugs killed him slowly over the years.

 

Guys,

I can recommend High Roller, the movie about Ungar and One of a Kind, the biography. If you're not familiar with Ungar's story, it will serve as the most heart-breaking cautionary tale you could imagine.

In Positively Fifth Street, Ungar also gets some ink.

On NFL Sundays, in the old Imperial Palace showroom, I used to sit at the table behind a couple who had a booth. The guy had been friends with Ungar when they were very young men, playing cards with tourists who visited a New York resort that evidently resembled the place in Dirty Dancing. From what this guy told me over the years, Ungar was truly unbelievable. Poker wasn't close to being his best game.

Yet when all was said and done, the "other things" -- mainly race and sports -- took most of his money. He was a true genius, but he tried to do too many things at which he wasn't gifted.

Anyway, read the book and watch the film.

And, hey, there's good things to be said about the Oasis. You can rent rooms with porn by the hour -- not many places like that these days.

 

Yeah that's the movie I've got "High Roller", haven't watched it in years. The end was open ended wasn't it, didn't somebody walks in the room and says let's go, which is why I always thought he owed money and was bumped. Didn't realize it was his soul.

 

City closed it down a few years ago for many violations. There was also an actor who hanged himself there years ago.

 

Unger and some others really got screwed on the Julio Caesar Chaves/Meldrick Taylor fight in the early nineties. Taylor was way up on points but got floored with a punch with 4 seconds to go. He got up but the referee stopped the fight. Unger was there and had his case $80,000 bet on Taylor. Chaves was a Don King fighter. And it was later reported that the referee was a a Don King referee.

When the crack sellers on 9th and Fremont seen Stuey walking down the street they all started running to be the first one to him. He would spend days in crack houses in that part of town.

 

He wore those blue shades to hide the fact his nose had no support and was caving in. He won a title wearing those sunglasses. Unbelievable.