Poker In The Media: The Stu Unger Story

by Bodog Poker | Aug 18 2010

He lived fast and died hard in 1998 at just 45 years old after winning back-to-back WSOP Main Events and two other bracelets so it’s easy to see why Stu Ungar would be selected as the subject for a biopic. High Roller: The Stu Ungar Story was a 2003 release that got little notice, not even getting enough attention from film reviewers to be given an overall ranking on Rottentomatoes.com, the scoring aggregator.  Before we get into the picture, however, we should talk about its subject a bit.

New Yorker Stu Ungar was exposed to gambling and games of chance at a young age.  His father, Ido Ungar, was a loan shark that ran an underground gambling den in his bar, Foxes Resort and despite the man’s efforts to keep his son away from gaming, Stu began playing in underground gin games, quickly making a name for himself.  The intelligent young man was a natural, avoiding most games of random chance and instead focusing on the ones where skill takes precedence.  Ungar skipped the seventh grade but dropped out in the tenth grade when he saw how much he could make in an evening.

After being befriended by Victor Romano (an alleged organized crime figure in New York City) and earning a reputation as an egocentric player who talked down his opposition, Ungar left the city and became a poker player after defeating gin rummy great Harry “Yonkie” Stein in 86 consecutive games and finding it difficult to find other players who’d challenge him.  He was introduced to poker while in Vegas and became as crazy about that game as he was about Gin, entering the 1980 WSOP main event after only a few tournaments and defeating Doyle Brunson handily.  Stu also used his genius-level IQ to play blackjack, counting cards and getting banned from almost every casino in Vegas in a short period of time.

As it was the 1980s, cocaine was becoming a part of the poker scene.  Ungar began using the drug to stay awake during marathon sessions under the advice of another player and soon found himself addicted.  The downward spiral his cocaine use triggered ruined his family life, causing him to divorce his wife in 1986 some blamed Ungar’s behavior for the death of his stepson, Richie in 1989.  In a particularly famous incident, Ungar was found on the floor of his hotel room during the 1990 WSOP Main Event, unconscious from a drug overdose.  His chip lead was so great that even without playing, he finished 9^th and won $20,500 after blinds were paid out.

It’s easy to see how a biography of the man would be compelling, especially considering his comeback in 1997’s WSOP Main Event and subsequent first-place victory, which he split with Billy Baxter for buying his way into the tournament.  However, cocaine kept calling him back into the fold and he ended up skipping the 1998 WSOP Main Event. In November of that same year, he was found dead in a cheap hotel room at the end of the strip.  According to the autopsy, while drugs were found in his system, it appears that his heart simply gave out after years of abuse.  Ungar left behind $800 from a $25,000 advance he’d received from Bob Stupak who’d offered to pay off his debts and finance his tournament play in exchange for future winnings.

It’s easy to see why this would make a compelling film.  Michael Imperioli, despite looking very little like Ungar, does a more-than-passable job in the lead when he’s given a chance to shine, but huge chunks of the film are set in his dying hours with his life story told in flashbacks that last too briefly before returning to the same dingy set piece where a stranger (representing Death) looms over him.  There’s too much scenery chewed to too little effect, and the interesting aspects of the game and how the scene around it changed in the nineties are lost to overblown narrative that cheapens the real events by making them maudlin.  It’s not recommended, even if it did win an Audience Choice Award at the Nashville Film Festival.

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