Stu Ungar
The main reason why Mr. Ungar switched from gin to poker was that he was a little too good at it. So skilled in fact, that no player possibly could stand up to him. Even the commonly called champions who were supposed to be the most favorable at gin were defeated when they competed with Stu. One such gin rummy player was Harry Stein, nicknamed, "Yonkie". Harry Stein was handed such a debilitating blow at the hands of stu that he apparently stopped participating in it professionally and never showed up at a gin rummy tournament.
Accordingly, with a honor like that it was not too long before people became afraid of competing against Stu Ungar. He could find no games and in his boredom he started doing something no one had done before. He began offering beginning handicaps to likely opposing players in the wish that they might just play opposed to him if they thought they held an edge. He deliberately played from a negative arrangement and one story has it that stu even played with a consistent bad egg. Mid contest, he get warnings that the cheater was at it one more time but Stu Ungar stated that he deduced of the fraudulent activity and he would still actually win, which he did, of course.
The same trend followed Stu Ungar to Las Vegas. He won so much that the poker rooms began requesting that he not to bet on their poker rooms anymore. The reason for it was that other casino customers refused to be seated at the poker table if he were seated.
Stu Ungar is remembered better for his abilities in texas holdem poker but he himself always maintained that he was much better at gin rummy.
He beat Doyle Brunson in the WSOP in 1980 to become the youngest world camp. Due to his features that made him appear far younger than he was, he got the nickname, "The Kid".
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